Skip to main content

Full text of "Macaulay's Lays of ancient Rome;"

See other formats 


P  R 

43t,3 
A? 

1901 


►C  Silver  Scries 

of  vm:\im  mi 
merican  Classics 


EDITED  B^ 


X  *  "  «.       \ 


tf  &  Com  party 


Class     ?! 

Book ,Al 


Copyright^0 


V  u 


COPYRIGHT  DEPOSIT. 


THOMAS   BABINGTON   MACAULAY. 


The  Silver  Series  of  English  and  American  Classics 


MACAULAY'S 


LAYS  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 


EDITED,    WITH  INTRODUCTION  AND   NOTES 
BY 

DUFFIELD    OSBORNE 


SILVER,   BURDETT   AND    COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  BOSTON  CHICAGO 


^ 


THE  LIBRARY  OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two  Copies  Received 

APR.  29  1901 

Copyright  entry 
CLASS  #/XXc.  n* 

copy  a 


Copyright,  1901, 
By  SILVER,    BUEDETT   &   COM  PAX  Y. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

EDITOR'S   INTRODUCTION 7 

AUTHOR'S   PREFACE 15 

Horatius .  .         39 

Battle  of  the  Lake  Regillus  ......       6o 

Virginia 99 

The  Prophecy  of  Capys    .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .121 

NOTES 137 


EDITOR'S   INTRODUCTION. 


The  writings  of  few  Englishmen  have  received  higher 
praise  and  sharper  criticism  than  have  those  of  Thomas 
Babington  Macaulay.  A  man  of  profound  learning  and 
strongly  defined  ideas  of  men  and  affairs,  he  treated  of 
times  and  topics  that  have  been  a  fruitful  source  of  partisan 
wrath  ;  and,  when  research  and  logic  seemed  to  lead  to  con- 
demnation, his  sentence  fell  with  all  the  crushing  weight  of 
a  style  at  once  trenchant  and  lucid.  Time  and  its  revolu- 
tions of  events  and  ideas,  national  resentments,  and  politi- 
cal necessities  have  united  to  bring  into  public  prominence 
many  champions  of  those  whom  Macaulay  condemned,  and 
it  is  little  to  be  wondered  at  that  such  champions  should  be 
found  eager  to  assail  the  pen  that  writ  their  clients  down 
for  hatred  and  contempt.  Macaulay  has  been  accused  of  all 
manner  of  prejudice  as  an  historian  and  a  biographer.  Even 
that  style  which  gave  his  blows  so  much  of  their  weight 
and  sting  has  been  decried  as  artificial ;  all  the  forces  of 
literary  aberrations  and  affectations  have  been  mustered 
into  the  service  against  him,  and,  in  order  that  his*  oppo- 
nents might  have  some  name  about  which  to  rally,  the  harsh 
and  crabbed  Carlyle  has  been  put  forward  as  a  model  whose 
disciples  must  of  necessity  condemn  the  grace  and  fluency 
of  the  man  upon  whose  reputation  the  vials  of  partisan 
wrath  were  to  be  emptied. 

7 


8  editor's  introduction. 

So  the  battle  has  been  waged  with  a  bitterness  seldom 
shown  over  the  works  of  dead  rivals ;  but  so  long  as  per- 
spicuity, force,  and  beauty  —  the  perfect  selection  of  words 
and  the  measured  proportion  of  sentences  and  ideas  —  are 
held  to  be  fair  ground  of  author's  praise,  so  long  Macaulay 
must  stand  in  the  forefront.  If  these  be  marks  of  arti- 
ficiality, then  we  must  admit,  perforce,  that  artificiality  pos- 
sesses points  which  merit  being  well  inquired  into  by  those 
who  would  excel  with  the  pen. 

As  for  the  strength  of  the  case  made  out  against  Macau- 
lay's  justice  and  reliability,  controversy  would  fall  within 
the  scope  of  a  discussion  of  his  history  or  his  essays, 
rather  than  within  that  of  this  introduction.  I  cannot, 
however,  refrain  from  commenting  that  a  much  more  bitter 
partisanship  than  his  seems  to  characterize  the  writings  of 
his  detractors,  and  that  I  know  of  very  few  instances  where 
his  facts  and  judgments  have  suffered  by  comparison  with 
the  revisions  suggested  or  demanded. 

To  briefly  summarize  his  life,  Thomas  Babington  Mac- 
aulay, the  son  of  Zachary  Macaulay,  West  India  merchant 
and  philanthropist,  was  born  at  Rothley  Temple,  Leicester- 
shire, October  25th,  1800.  After  a  childhood,  the  remark- 
able precocity  of  which  leads  wonder  almost  to  the  point 
of  incredulity,  he  entered  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  in 
1818,  and,  in  1819,  won  the  Chancellor's  medal  by  his  poem 
entitled  " Pompeii."  Another  medal  and  a  scholarship 
were  conferred  soon  after,  and,  in  1822,  the  degree  of  B.A. 
Later  he  received  a  fellowship,  and,  in  1825,  the  degree  of 
M.A.  Meanwhile  his  pen  had  been  busy  with  essays  and 
poems  contributed   to   many  periodicals.      At  the    age   of 


editor's  introduction.  9 

twenty-five  the  essay  on  "Milton"  shows  him  in  the  full 
maturity  of  his  marvellous  power.  Called  to  the  bar  in 
1826,  but  never  undertaking  its  practice,  he  soon  plunged 
into  the  vortex  of  politics.  Entering  Parliament  in  1830, 
he  went  to  India  in  1834,  as  member  of  the  Supreme  Council, 
where  he  prepared  his  famous  Indian  Penal  Code.  In  1838 
he  returned  home  and  in  1839  resumed  his  seat  in  Parlia- 
ment, becoming  war  secretary  in  1840.  In  1846  he  became 
paymaster-general,  but  in  1847  his  advocacy  of  the  May- 
nooth  Grant  lost  him  his  seat.  Five  years  later  the  same 
constituency  (Edinburgh)  elected  him  unsolicited.  Mean- 
while he  had  been  employed  upon  his  history,  a  work  con- 
tinued almost  to  the  time  of  his  death,  Avhich  occurred  in 
London,  December  28th,  1859.  Many  honors  were  con- 
ferred upon  him  during  his  life  by  English  and  foreign 
universities,  academies,  and  potentates,  and,  in  the  year 
1857,  he  was  raised  to  the  peerage  under  the  title  of  Baron 
Macaulay  of   Rothley.     He  never  married. 

Macaulay  wras  at  all  times  a  consistent  whig  in  politics. 
Outside  of  his  untiring  and  many-sided  activity,  his  chival- 
rous support  of  the  weak  and  the  oppressed  is  perhaps  the 
most  marked  as  well  as  the  most  honorable  feature  of  his 
career.  His  first  speech  in  Parliament  was  in  support  of 
the  bill  to  repeal  the  civil  disabilities  of  the  Jews ;  his 
Indian  Penal  Code  was  characterized  by  a  humanity  toward 
the  native  population  quite  new  to  the  policy  of  the  con- 
querors of  India;  while  his  advocacy  of  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic Relief  Bill  and  of  government  support  for  the  Roman 
Catholic  college  at  Maynooth  brought  him  the  only  great 
rebuff  ever   received    during  his  career,  the  defeat  in  the 


10  editor's  introduction. 

Edinburgh  election,  which  called  forth  his  noble  "Lines 
Written  on  the  Night  of  the  30th  of  July,  1847."  It  would 
be  well  for  those  who  fail  in  the  seeking  for  political  pre- 
ferment, could  more  of  them  receive  their  failure  in  such  a 
cause  and  in  such  a  spirit.  Americans  should  never  forget 
Macaulay's  deep  appreciation  of  Washington,  voiced  in  the 
closing  words  of  his  Essay  on  John  Hampden,  which  read : 
"  It  was  when  the  vices  and  ignorance  which  the  old  tyranny 
had  generated  threatened  the  new  freedom  with  destruction 
that  England  missed  the  sobriety,  the  self-command,  the  per- 
fect soundness  of  judgment,  the  perfect  rectitude  of  inten- 
tion to  which  history  furnishes  no  parallel,  or  furnishes  a 
parallel  in  Washington  alone." 

Turning  to  the  literary  Macauiay,  we  find  first  of  all  a 
versatility  that  few  writers  have  equalled.  Primarily,  per- 
haps, he  is  known  best  as  a  historian  and  an  essayist.  Once 
he  wrote  a  fragment  of  a  novel,  once  a  fragment  of  a  play, 
thrown  off  as  if  to  see  what  he  might  accomplish  in  these 
lines  were  his  time  not  absorbed  in  weightier  labors ;  while 
through  all,  was  continued  the  work  of  the  orator,  the  legis- 
lator, the  administrator  of  his  country's  government.  It  is 
with  none  of  these,  however,  but  with  Macauiay  as  a  poet 
that  we  have  now  to  deal,  limiting  our  study  of  him,  even 
in  this  line,  to  that  series  of  poems  which  has  acquired  the 
greatest  popularity :  "  The  Lays  of  Ancient  Rome,"  pub- 
lished in  1842. 

It  is  a  fashion  among  certain  would-be  consistent  critics  to 
decry  the  author  of  "  The  Lays  "  as  being  a  mere  versifier,  a 
writer  of  clever  jingle.  For  the  men  who  would  limit  poetry 
within  these  or  those  narrow  lines,  the  theorists  who  start 


editor's  introduction.  11 

with  a  theory  and  a  woe-betide-the-facts-that-stand-against-it 
attitude,  I  have  nothing  to  say.  They  are  the  little  men  in 
literature :  critics  —  and  that  is  all.  "  Poetry  "  is,  I  con- 
ceive, a  word  much  too  broad  to  be  limitable  by  any  principle 
of  thought  or  method  of  treatment.  It  speaks  first  to  the 
heart,  and  it  speaks  in  that  vague  but  forceful  tongue  that 
only  the  heart  can  fully  comprehend.  The  mind  may  study 
its  language,  but  after  all,  the  mind  is  a  foreigner,  and  to 
such  the  tongue  of  Poetry  is  strange  and  complex  and 
arbitrary.  Only  he  whose  heart  is  great  enough  to  feel  its 
messages  may  presume  to  receive  them,  and  that  with  rever- 
ence and  all  humility.  It  is  the  literary  Prankensteins, 
laboring  over  the  product  of  their  self-conceit  and  their 
affectations,  who  produce  an  anatomical  poetry  almost  com- 
parable to  the  monster  that  sprang  from  study  devoid  of 
soul. 

Happy  is  he  whose  heart  responds  to  the  grand  swing  of 
Milton,  the  soulful  melody  of  Keats,  the  deep  insight  of 
Shakespeare,  and  whose  spirit  yet  tells  him  that  poets  as 
well  are  they  who  have  struck  the  lyre  to  lighter  measure, 
the  singers  of  petty  things  and  quaint  conceits,  the  race  of 
the  trouveres,  whose  ballads  of  stirring  deeds,  set  to  lilting 
measures,  ring  through  the  centuries  from  the  days  when 
all  Provence  hung  upon  the  judgments  of  her  courts  of 
love,  to  when  Scott  and  Macaulay  laid  a  like  tribute  at  the 
feet  of  like  exploits. 

Unlike,  however,  other  makers  of  ballad  poetry,  Mac- 
aulay alone  has  endeavored  to  sing  the  songs  of  times  and 
of  a  nation  long  passed  away,  and  to  sing  them  in  the 
simulated   voices   of    singers   whose   bones   are   dust,  and 


12  editor's  introduction. 

whose  names  and  works  are  buried  under  the  mountain  of 
two  thousand  years.  For  such  a  task  there  must  be  added 
to  the  heart  and  art  of  the  poet,  the  learning  of  the  student 
of  antiquity.  To  construct  is  one  thing,  to  reconstruct 
with  never  a  model  is  another  and  far  harder  undertak- 
ing, but  it  is  probable  that  no  man  ever  lived  who  could 
so  well  bring  to  the  work  the  varied  qualities  which  it  re- 
quired. 

Macaulay  was  by  very  nature  a  poet  of  the  ballad  school. 
His  was  the  heart  to  thrill  at  the  story  of  great  deeds,  and 
his  the  speech  to  clothe  them  in  raiment  worthy  of  their 
glory.  It  is  all  there  :  spirit,  fire,  the  rapid  swing  of  the 
narrative  that  carries  you  along  upon  its  tide  until  you 
seem  of  a  verity  borne  away  upon  the  torrent  of  the  charge, 
until  your  ears  ring  with  the  notes  of  the  trumpet,  the 
shouts  and  groans,  the  terrible  clash  of  arms.  No  one  writh 
the  least  poetic  feeling  can  read  "  Horatius "  and  "  The 
Battle  of  Lake  Kegillus  "  without  knowing  all  this.  The 
images,  the  sentiments,  never  seem  to  stay  for  a  moment 
the  onrush  of  the  battle.  Is  not  this  more  than  art  ?  Is  it 
not  the  true  resonance  of  a  mind  to  which  art  is  nature  ? 
Thus  only  does  talent  stand  aside,  and  genius  spring,  like 
Pallas,  full-armed  from  the  head  of  Zeus. 

In  all  these  poems  there  is  hardly  what  might  be  called 
a  digression,  and  perhaps  the  most  notable  instances  — 
Horatius'  comment  upon  the  perfect  death,  and  the  sup- 
posed author's  lament  for  the  good  old  times  —  seem  so 
suited  to  the  places  they  fill  that  they  come  to  us  quite 
naturally,  even  while  we  press  on  with  "  sword  lifted  up 
to  slay."     In  "  Virginius  "  the  story  is  less  martial,  and  in 


editor's  introduction.  13 

"  The  Prophecy  of  Capys  "  there  is  little  narrative  of  any 
kind,  but  the  swing  is  the  same  in  both,  and  the  perfect 
fitness  and,  at  the  same  time,  subordination  of  the  ornament 
to  the  matter  are  marvelously  preserved. 

The  other  qualification  which  Macaulay  brought  to  his  task, 
one  which  this  particular  task  needed  in  the  highest  de- 
gree, was  a  general  and  special  erudition  such  as  the  world 
has  seldom  seen :  —  a  mind  that  had  delved  deeply  in  the 
literature  of  all  peoples  and  times,  and  a  memory  that  never 
let  go  a  thought  or  fact  once  grasped.  Choosing  to  speak 
in  the  characters  of  ancient  poets,  as  he  tells  in  his  preface, 
he  of  all  writers  was  best  able  to  become  their  very  avatars. 
A  sound  judgment,  however,  held  him  from  striving  for  too 
much.  What  research  could  hope  to  revive  the  outward 
form  of  a  minstrelsy  every  line  of  which  is  lost  ?  and  even 
if  we  could  assume  that  Macaulay's  acute  classical  instinct 
might  have  led  him,  unguided,  to  the  truth  in  this  respect, 
surely  the  song  would  not  have  told  us  of  to-day  what  in 
spirit  it  now  tells.  Under  the  form  and  in  the  measure  of 
modern  minstrelsy,  the  thought,  the  feeling  of  the  ancient 
minstrel  is  brought  closer  and  more  powerfully  to  our  minds, 
together  with  all  those  subtle  qualities  that  we  describe  by 
the  term  "  local  color." 

Realizing  then,  that  the  form  of  the  verse  was  but  as  a 
means  to  an  end,  Macaulay  chose  a  medium  that  would 
best  interpret  its  message  to  his  audience.  Therefore  the 
lays  are  not  couched  in  any  attempted  simulation  of  the 
rough  blank  verse  of  a  time  as  crude  as  it  was  poetic,  any 
more  than  they  are  written  in  the  language  spoken  upon  the 
Palatine  or  among  the  Alban  Hills.     Music,  a  comparatively 


14  editor's  introduction. 

new  art,  has  brought  rhyme  and  lighter  measure  as  aids  to 
feeling  and  comprehension,  and  this  he  utilized  to  the  full. 
In  form,  as  in  language,  the  lays  are  in  the  best  English ;  in 
mind  and  soul  and  spirit  they  are  early  Eoman :  a  marvel  of 
revivified  antiquity. 

In  the  notes  to  the  poems,  I  have  endeavored  to  cover 
every  point  needed  for  a  full  comprehension  of  allusions  to 
a  time  and  place  and  civilization  so  foreign  to  our  own; 
and,  that  the  spirit  in  which  the  author  approached  his 
task  might  be  fully  understood,  I  have  retained  his  own 
preface  and  his  several  introductions  to  the  poems. 

DUEFIELD    OSBORNE. 


AUTHOR'S   PREFACE. 


That  what  is  called  the  history  of  the  Kings  and  early 
Consuls  of  Kome  is  to  a  great  extent  fabulous,  few  scholars 
have,  since  the  time  of  Beaufort,  ventured  to  deny.  It  is 
certain  that,  more  than  three  hundred  and  sixty  years  after 
the  date  ordinarily  assigned  for  the  foundation  of  the  city, 
the  public  records  were,  with  scarcely  an  exception,  de- 
stroyed by  the  Gauls.  It  is  certain  that  the  oldest  annals 
of  the  commonwealth  were  compiled  more  than  a  century 
and  a  half  after  this  destruction  of  the  records.  It  is 
certain,  therefore,  that  the  great  Latin  writers  of  the 
Augustan  age  did  not  possess  those  materials,  without 
which  a  trustworthy  account  of  the  infancy  of  the  republic 
could  not  possibly  be  framed.  Those  writers  own,  indeed, 
that  the  chronicles  to  which  they  ha.d  access  were  filled 
with  battles  that  were  never  fought,  and  Consuls  that  were 
never  inaugurated ;  and  we  have  abundant  proof  that,  in 
these  chronicles,  events  of  the  greatest  importance,  such 
as  the  issue  of  the  war  with  Porsena,  and  the  issue  of  the 
war  with  Brennus,  were  grossly  misrepresented.  Under 
these  circumstances  a  wise  man  will  look  with  great  sus- 
picion on  the  legend  which  has  come  down  to  us.  He  will 
perhaps  be  inclined  to  regard  the  princes  who  are  said  to 
have  founded  the  civil  and  religious  institutions  of  Koine, 

15 


16  author's  preface. 

the  son  of  Mars,  and  the  husband  of  Egeria,  as  mere  mytho- 
logical personages,  of  the  same  class  with  Perseus  and  Ixion. 
As  he  draws  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  confines  of  authentic 
history,  he  will  become  less  and  less  hard  of  belief.  He 
will  admit  that  the  most  important  parts  of  the  narrative 
have  some  foundation  in  truth.  But  he  will  distrust  almost 
all  the  details,  not  only  because  they  seldom  rest  on  any 
solid  evidence,  but  also  because  he  will  constantly  detect 
in  them,  even  when  they  are  within  the  limits  of  physical 
possibility,  that  peculiar  character,  more  easily  understood 
than  defined,  which  distinguishes  the  creations  of  the  im- 
agination from  the  realities  of  the  world  in  which  we  live. 
The  early  history  of  Eome  is  indeed  far  more  poetical 
than  anything  else  in  Latin  literature.  The  loves  of  the 
Vestal  and  the  God  of  War,  the  cradle  laid  among  the  reeds 
of  Tiber,  the  fig-tree,  the  she-wolf,  the  shepherd's  cabin, 
the  recognition,  the  fratricide,  the  rape  of  the  Sabines,  the 
death  of  Tarpeia,  the  fall  of  Hostus  Hostilius,  the  struggle 
of  Mettus  Curtius  through  the  marsh,  the  women  rushing 
with  torn  raiment  and  dishevelled  hair  between  their 
fathers  and  their  husbands,  the  nightly  meetings  of  Numa 
and  the  Nymph  by  the  well  in  the  sacred  grove,  the  fight 
of  the  three  Eomans  and  the  three  Albans,  the  purchase 
of  the  Sybylline  books,  the  crime  of  Tullia,  the  simulated 
madness  of  Brutus,  the  ambiguous  reply  of  the  Delphian 
oracle  to  the  Tarquins,  the  wrongs  of  Lucretia,  the  heroic 
actions  of  Horatius  Codes,  of  Scsevola,  and  of  Cloelia,  the 
battle  of  Begillus  won  by  the  aid  of  Castor  and  Pollux, 
the  defence  of  Cremera,  the  touching  story  of  Coriolanus, 
the  still  more  touching  story  of  Virginia,  the  wild  legend 


author's  preface.  17 

about  the  draining  of  the  Alban  lake,  the  combat  between 
Valerius  Corvus  and  the  gigantic  Gaul,  are  among  the 
many  instances  which  will  at  once  suggest  themselves  to 
every  reader. 

In  the  narrative  of  Livy,  who  was  a  man  of  fine  imagina- 
tion, these  stories  retain  much  of  their  genuine  character. 
Nor  could  even  the  tasteless  Dionysius  distort  and  muti- 
late them  into  mere  prose.  The  poetry  shines,  in  spite 
of  him,  through  the  dreary  pedantry  of  his  eleven  books. 
It  is  discernible  in  the  most  tedious  and  in  the  most  super- 
ficial modern  works  on  the  early  times  of  Borne.  It  en- 
livens the  dulness  of  the  Universal  History,  and  gives  a 
charm  to  the  most  meagre  abridgments  of  Goldsmith. 

Even  in  the  age  of  Plutarch  there  were  discerning  men 
who  rejected  the  popular  account  of  the  foundation  of 
Borne,  because  that  account  appeared  to  them  to  have  the 
air,  not  of  a  history,  but  of  a  romance  or  a  drama.  Plu- 
tarch, who  was  displeased  at  their  incredulity,  had  nothing 
better  to  say  in  reply  to  their  arguments  than  that  chance 
sometimes  turns  poet,  and  produces  trains  of  events  not 
to  be  distinguished  from  the  most  elaborate  plots  which 
are  constructed  by  art.#     But  though  the  existence  of  a 

*  Tttotttov  fjiev  eviois  earl  to  dpa/JLCLTiKdv  kclI  ir\a<rfjLCiT tides  '  ov  del-Be 
aTViGTelv,  T7]v  rvxyv  bpwvras,  o'lcov  Troirj/jLaruv  87)/jLiovpy6s  eo~ri. — Plut. 
Rom.  viii.  This  remarkable  passage  has  been  more  grossly  misinterpreted 
than  any  other  in  the  Greek  language,  where  the  sense  was  so  obvious. 
The  Latin  version  of  Cruserius,  the  French  version  of  Amyot,  the  old 
English  version  by  several  hands,  and  the  later  English  version  by  Lang- 
horne,  are  all  equally  destitute  of  every  trace  of  the  meaning  of  the  origi- 
nal. None  of  the  translators  saw  even  that  7roirjfxa  is  a  poem.  They  all 
render  it  an  event. 


18  author's  preface. 

poetical  element  in  the  early  history  of  the  Great  City  was 
detected  so  many  years  ago,  the  first  critic  who  distinctly 
saw  from  what  source  that  poetical  element  had  been  de- 
rived was  James  Perizonius,  one  of  the  most  acute  and 
learned  antiquaries  of  the  seventeenth  century.  His  theory, 
which,  in  his  own  days,  attracted  little  or  no  notice,  was 
revived  in  the  present  generation  by  ISTiebuhr,  a  man  who 
would  have  been  the  first  writer  of  his  time,  if  his  talent 
for  communicating  truths  had  born  any  proportion  to  his 
talent  for  investigating  them.  That  theory  has  been 
adopted  by  several  eminent  scholars  of  our  own  country, 
particularly  by  the  Bishop  of  St.  David's,  by  Professor 
Maiden,  and  by  the  lamented  Arnold.  It  appears  to  be 
now  generally  received  by  men  conversant  with  classical 
antiquity ;  and  indeed  it  rests  on  such  strong  proofs,  both 
internal  and  external,  that  it  will  not  be  easily  subverted. 
A  popular  exposition  of  this  theor}^,  and  of  the  evidence 
by  which  it  is  supported,  may  not  be  without  interest 
even  for  readers  who  are  unacquainted  with  the  ancient 
languages. 

The  Latin  literature  which  has  come  down  to  us  is  of 
later  date  than  the  commencement  of  the  Second  Punic 
War,  and  consists  almost  exclusively  of  works  fashioned 
on  Greek  models.  The  Latin  metres,  heroic,  elegiac,  lyric, 
and  dramatic,  are  of  Greek  origin.  The  best  Latin  epic 
poetry  is  the  feeble  echo  of  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey.  The 
best  Latin  eclogues  are  imitations  of  Theocritus.  The 
plan  of  the  most  finished  didactic  poem  in  the  Latin 
tongue  was  taken  from  Hesiod.  The  Latin  tragedies 
are   bad  copies    of    the    masterpieces    of    Sophocles    and 


author's  preface.  19 

Euripides.  The  Latin  comedies  are  free  translations  from 
Demophilus,  Menander,  and  Apollodorus.  The  Latin  phi- 
losophy was  borrowed,  without  alteration,  from  the  Portico 
and  the  Academy  ;  and  the  great  Latin  orators  constantly 
proposed  to  themselves  as  patterns  the  speeches  of  Demos- 
thenes and  Lysias. 

But  there  was  an  earlier  Latin  literature,  a  literature 
truly  Latin,  which  has  wholly  perished,  which  had,  indeed, 
almost  wholly  perished  long  before  those  whom  we  are  in 
the  habit  of  regarding  as  the  greatest  Latin  writers  were 
born.  That  literature  abounded  with  metrical  romances, 
such  as  are  found  in  every  country  where  there  is  much 
curiosity  and  intelligence,  but  little  reading  and  writing. 
All  human  beings,  not  utterly  savage,  long  for  some  infor- 
mation about  past  times,  and  are  delighted  by  narratives 
which  present  pictures  to  the  eye  of  the  mind.  But  it  is 
only  in  very  enlightened  communities  that  books  are  readily 
accessible.  Metrical  composition,  therefore,  which,  in  a 
highly  civilised  nation,  is  a  mere  luxury,  is,  in  nations  im- 
perfectly civilised,  almost  a  necessary  of  life,  and  is  valued 
less  on  account  of  the  pleasure  which  it  gives  to  the  ear, 
than  on  account  of  the  help  which  it  gives  to  the  memory. 
A  man  who  can  invent  or  embellish  an  interesting  story, 
and  put  it  into  a  form  which  others  may  easily  retain  in 
their  recollection,  will  always  be  highly  esteemed  by  a  peo- 
ple eager  for  amusement  and  information,  but  destitute  of 
libraries.  Such  is  the  origin  of  ballad-poetry,  a  species  of 
composition  which  scarcely  ever  fails  to  spring  up  and 
flourish  in  every  society,  at  a  certain  point  in  the  progress 
towards  refinement.     Tacitus  informs  us  that  sonsrs  were 


20  author's  preface. 

the  only  memorials  of  the  past  which  the  ancient  Germans 
possessed.  We  learn  from  Lucan  and  from  Ammianus 
Marcellinus  that  the  brave  actions  of  the  ancient  Gauls 
were  commemorated  in  the  verses  of  Bards.  During  many 
ages  and  through  many  revolutions,  minstrelsy  retained  its 
influence  over  both  the  Teutonic  and  the  Celtic  race.  The 
vengeance  exacted  by  the  spouse  of  Attila  for  the  murder 
of  Siegfried  was  celebrated  in  rhymes,  of  which  Germany 
is  still  justly  proud.  The  exploits  of  Athelstane  were  com- 
memorated by  the  Anglo-Saxons,  and  those  of  Canute  by 
the  Danes,  in  rude  poems,  of  which  a  few  fragments  have 
come  down  to  us.  The  chants  of  the  Welsh  harpers  pre- 
served, through  ages  of  darkness,  a  faint  and  doubtful  mem- 
ory of  Arthur.  In  the  Highlands  of  Scotland  may  still  be 
gleaned  some  relics  of  the  old  songs  about  Cuthullin  and 
Fingal.  The  long  struggle  of  the  Servians  against  the  Otto- 
man power  was  recorded  in  lays  full  of  martial  spirit.  We 
learn  from  Herrera  that,  when  a  Peruvian  Inca  died,  men 
of  skill  were  appointed  to  celebrate  him  in  verses,  which 
all  the  people  learned  by  heart,  and  sang  in  public  on  days 
of  festival.  The  feats  of  Kurroglou,  the  great  freebooter 
of  Turkistan,  recounted  in  ballads  composed  by  himself, 
are  known  in  every  village  of  Northern  Persia.  Captain 
Eeechey  heard  the  bards  of  the  Sandwich  Islands  recite 
the  heroic  achievements  of  Kamehameha,  the  most  illus- 
trious of  their  kings.  Mungo  Park  found  in  the  heart  of 
Africa  a  class  of  singing-men,  the  only  annalists  of  their 
rude  tribes,  and  heard  them  tell  the  story  of  the  victory 
which  Darnel,  the  negro  prince  of  the  Jaloffs,  won  over  Ab- 
dulkader,  the  Mussulman  tyrant  of  Foota  Torra.    This  spe- 


author's  preface.  21 

cies  of  poetry  attained  a  high  degree  of  excellence  among 
the  Castilians,  before  they  began  to  copy  Tuscan  patterns. 
It  attained  a  still  higher  degree  of  excellence  among  the 
English  and  the  Lowland  Scotch,  during  the  fourteenth, 
fifteenth,  and  sixteenth  centuries.  But  it  reached  its  full 
perfection  in  ancient  Greece  ;  for  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  great  Homeric  poems  are  generically  ballads,  though 
widely  distinguished  from  all  other  ballads,  and  indeed 
from  almost  all  other  human  compositions,  by  transcendent 
sublimity  and  beauty. 

As  it  is  agreeable  to  general  experience  that,  at  a  cer- 
tain stage  in  the  progress  of  society,  ballad-poetry  should 
nourish,  so  is  it  also  agreeable  to  general  experience  that, 
at  a  subsequent  stage  in  the  progress  of  society,  ballad- 
poetry  should  be  undervalued  and  neglected.  Knowledge 
advances :  manners  change :  great  foreign  models  of  com- 
position are  studied  and  imitated.  The  phraseology  of  the 
old  minstrels  becomes  obsolete.  Their  versification,  which, 
having  received  its  laws  only  from  the  ear,  abounds  in 
irregularities,  seems  licentious  and  uncouth.  Their  sim- 
plicity appears  beggarly  when  compared  with  the  quaint 
forms  and  gaudy  colouring  of  such  artists  as  Cowley  and 
Gongora.  The  ancient  lays,  unjustly  despised  by  the 
learned  and  polite,  linger  for  a  time  in  the  memory  of  the 
vulgar,  and  are  at  length  too  often  irretrievably  lost.  We 
cannot  wonder  that  the  ballads  of  Rome  should  have  alto- 
gether disappeared,  when  we  remember  how  very  narrowly, 
in  spite  of  the  invention  of  printing,  those  of  our  own 
country  and  those  of  Spain  escaped  the  same  fate.  There 
is  indeed   little  doubt  that  oblivion  covers   many  English 


22  author's  preface. 

songs  equal  to  any  that  were  published  by  Bishop  Percy, 
and  many  Spanish  songs  as  good  as  the  best  of  those  which 
have  been  so  happily  translated  by  Mr.  Lockhart.  Eighty 
years  ago  England  possessed  only  one  tattered  copy  of 
Childe  "Waters  and  Sir  Cauline,  and  Spain  only  one  tattered 
copy  of  the  noble  poern  of  the  Cid.  The  snuff  of  a  candle, 
or  a  mischievous  dog,  might  in  a  moment  have  deprived 
the  world  for  ever  of  any  of  those  fine  compositions.  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  who  united  to  the  fire  of  a  great  poet  the  minute- 
curiosity  and  patient  diligence  of  a  great  antiquary,  was 
but  just  in  time  to  save  the  precious  relics  of  the  Minstrelsy 
of  the  Border.  In  Germany,  the  lay  of  the  Nibelungs  had 
been  long  utterly  forgotten,  when,  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, it  was,  for  the  first  time,  printed  from  a  manuscript 
in  the  old  library  of  a  noble  family.  In  truth,  the  only 
people  who,  through  their  whole  passage  from  simplicity  to 
the  highest  civilisation,  never  for  a  moment  ceased  to  love 
and  admire  their  old  ballads,  were  the  Greeks. 

That  the  early  Romans  should  have  had  ballad-poetry, 
and  that  this  poetry  should  have  perished,  is  therefore  not 
strange.  It  would,  on  the  contrary,  have  been  strange  if 
these  things  had  not  come  to  pass ;  and  we  should  be  justi- 
fied in  pronouncing  them  highly  probable,  even  if  we  had 
no  direct  evidence  on  the  subject.  But  we  have  direct 
evidence  of  unquestionable  authority. 

Ennius,  who  flourished  in  the  time  of  the  Second  Punic 
War,  was  regarded  in  the  Augustan  age  as  the  father  of 
Latin  poetry.  He  was,  in  truth,  the  father  of  the  second 
school  of  Latin  poetry,  the  only  school  of  which  the  works 
have  descended  to  us.     But  from  Ennius  himself  we  learn 


author's  preface.  23 

that  there  were  poets  who  stood  to  him  in  the  same 
relation  in  which  the  author  of  the  romance  of  Count 
Alarcos  stood  to  Garcilaso,  or  the  author  of  the  'Lytell 
Geste  of  Eobyn  Hode '  to  Lord  Surrey.  Ennius  speaks  of 
verses  which  the  Fauns  and  the  bards  were  wont  to  chant 
in  the  old  time,  when  none  had  yet  studied  the  graces  of 
speech,  when  none  had  yet  climbed  the  peaks  sacred  to  the 
Goddesses  of  Grecian  song.  'Where/  Cicero  mournfully 
asks,  i  are  those  old  verses  now  ?  '  * 

Contemporary  with  Ennius  was  Quintus  Fabius  Pictor, 
the  earliest  of  the  Roman  annalists.  His  account  of  the 
infancy  and  youth  of  Romulus  and  Remus  has  been 
preserved  by  Dionysius,  and  contains  a  very  remarkable 
reference  to  the  ancient  Latin  poetry.  Fabius  says  that, 
in  his  time,  his  countrymen  were  still  in  the  habit  of 
singing  ballads  about  the  Twins.  'Even  in  the  hut  of 
Faustulus/  —  so  these  old  lays  appear  to  have  run,  —  'the 


*  "  Quid  ?    Nostri  veteres  versus  ubi  sunt  ? 

'  Quos  oliin  Fauui  varesque  canebant 

Cuhi  neque  Musarom  scopulos  quisquani  superarat, 
Xec  dicti  studiosus  erat.'  "  Brutus,  xviii. 

The  Muses,  it  should  be  observed,  are  Greek  divinities.  The  Italian  God- 
desses of  verse  were  the  Caruoenae.  At  a  later  period,  the  appellations 
were  used  indiscriminately  ;  but  in  the  age  of  Ennius  there  was  probably 
a  distinction.  In  the  epitaph  of  Naevius,  who  was  the  representative  of 
the  old  Italian  school  of  poetry,  the  Canicenoe,  not  the  Muses,  are  repre- 
sented as  grieving  for  the  loss  of  their  votary.  The  "  Musarura  scopuli" 
are  evidently  the  peaks  of  Parnassus. 

Scaliger.  in  a  note  on  Varro  (De  Lingua  Latino.,  lib.  vi.),  suggests, 
with  great  ingenuity,  that  the  Fauns,  who  were  represented  by  the  super- 
stition of  later  ages  as  a  race  of  monsters,  half  gods  and  half  brutes,  may 
really  have  been  a  class  of  men  who  exercised  in  Latium.  at  a  very  remote 
period,  the  same  functions  which  belonged  to  the  Magians  in  Persia  and  to 
the  bards  in  Gaul. 


21  author's  preface. 

children  of  Khea  and  Mars  were,  in  port  and  in  spirit, 
not  like  unto  swineherds,  or  cowherds,  but  such  that  men 
might  well  guess  them  to  be  of  the  blood  of  kings  and 
Gods.* 

*  Ot  de  av8p(*)6evT€s  yivovTcu,  Kara  re  a^iojcnp  fJLopcprjs  /cat  (ppovrj/uLaros 
6ynov,  ov  <rvo(pop(3o?s  /cat  (3ovko\ols  eot/cdres,  dXX'  otovs  civ  tls  a^ubveie 
roi)s  €K  PaaCKeiov  re  (ptivras  yevovs,  /cat  dirb  daifxbvLov  airopas  yeveadai 
vofjufr/jievovs,  cos  kv  rots  irarpiois  v/ivols  virb  'Pw/xatW  ert  /cat  vvv  aderat. 
—  Dion.  Hal.  i.  79.  This  passage  has  sometimes  been  cited  as  if 
Dionysius  had  been  speaking  in  his  own  person,  and  had,  Greek  as  he 
was,  been  so  industrious  or  so  fortunate  as  to  discover  some  valuable 
remains  of  that  early  Latin  poetry  which  the  greatest  Latin  writers  of 
his  age  regretted  as  hopelessly  lost.  Such  a  supposition  is  highly  im- 
probable ;  and  indeed  it  seems  clear  from  the  context  that  Dionysius,  as 
Reiske  and  other  editors  evidently  thought,  was  merely  quoting  from 
Fabius  Pictor.  The  whole  passage  has  the  air  of  an  extract  from  an 
ancient  chronicle,  and  is  introduced  by  the  words,  KotVros  fxev  <£d/3tos, 
6  Ilt/cTwp  \ey6fievos,  rrjde  ypd<peL. 

Another  argument  may  be  urged  which  seems  to  deserve  considera- 
tion. The  author  of  the  passage  in  question  mentions  a  thatched  hut 
which,  in  his  time,  stood  between  the  summit  of  Mount  Palatine  and  the 
Circus.  This  hut,  he  says,  was  built  by  Romulus,  and  was  constantly 
kept  in  repair  at  the  public  charge,  but  never  in  any  respect  embellished. 
Now,  in  the  age  of  Dionysius  there  certainly  was  at  Rome  a  thatched 
hut,  said  to  have  been  that  of  Romulus.  But  this  hut,  as  we  learn  from 
Vitruvius,  stood,  not  near  the  Circus,  but  in  the  Capitol.  (Vit.  ii.  1.)  If, 
therefore,  we  understand  Dionysius  to  speak  in  his  own  person,  we  can 
reconcile  his  statement  with  that  of  Vitruvius  only  by  supposing  that 
there  were  at  Rome,  in  the  Augustan  age»  two  thatched  huts,  both 
believed  to  have  been  built  by  Romulus,  and  both  carefully  repaired  and 
held  in  high  honour.  The  objections  to  such  a  supposition  seem  to  be 
strong.  Neither  Dionysius  nor  Vitruvius  speaks  of  more  than  one  such 
hut.  Dio  Cassius  informs  us  that  twice,  during  the  long  administration 
of  Augustus,  the  hut  of  Romulus  caught  fire  (xlviii.  43,  liv.  29).  Had 
there  been  two  such  huts,  would  he  not  have  told  us  of  which  he  spoke? 
An  English  historian  would  hardly  give  an  account  of  a  fire  at  Queen's 
College  without  saying  whether  it  was  at  Queen's  College,  Oxford,  or 
at  Queen's  College,  Cambridge.  Marcus  Seneca,  Macrobius,  and  Conon, 
a  Greek  writer  from  whom  Photius  has  made  large  extracts,  mention 


author's  preface.  25 

Cato  the  Censor,  who  also  lived  in  the  days  of  the 
Second  Punic  War,  mentioned  this  lost  literature  in  his 
lost  work  on  the  antiquities  of  his  country.  Many  ages, 
he  said,  before  his  time,  there  were  ballads  in  praise  of 
illustrious  men  ;  and  these  ballads  it  was  the  fashion  for 
the  guests  at  banquets  to  sing  in  turn  while  the  piper 
played.  i Would,'  exclaims  Cicero,  'that  we  still  had  the 
old  ballads  of  which  Cato  speaks !  '  # 

Valerius  Maximus  gives  us  exactly  similar  information, 

only  one  but  of  Romulus,  that  in  the  Capitol.  {M.  Seneca,  Contr. 
i.  6;  Macrobius,  Sat.  i.  15;  Photius,  Bibl.  186.)  Ovid,  Livy,  Petronius, 
Valerius  Maximus,  Lucius  Seneca,  and  St.  Jerome  mention  only  one 
hut  of  Romulus,  without  specifying  the  site.  {Ovid,  Fasti,  iii.  183; 
Liv.  v.  53;  Petronius,  Fragm. ;  Veil,  Max.  iv.  4;  L.  Seneca,  Consolatio 
ad  Helviam ;  D.  Hleron.  ad  Paulinianum  de  Didymo.) 

The  whole  difficulty  is  removed  if  we  suppose  that  Dionysius  was 
merely  quoting  Fabius  Pictor.  Nothing  is  more  probable  than  that  the 
cabin,  which  in  the  time  of  Fabius  stood  near  the  Circus,  might,  long 
before  the  age  of  Augustus,  have  been  transported  to  the  Capitol,  as 
the  place  fittest,  by  reason  both  of  its  safety  and  of  its  sanctity,  to  contain 
so  precious  a  relic. 

The  language  of  Plutarch  confirms  this  hypothesis.  He  describes, 
with  great  precision,  the  spot  where  Romulus  dwelt,  on  the  slope  of 
Mount  Palatine  leading  to  the  Circus ;  but  he  says  not  a  word  implying 
that  the  dwelling  was  still  to  be  seen  there.  Indeed,  his  expressions 
imply  that  it  was  no  longer  there.  The  evidence  of  Solinus  is  still  more 
to  the  point.  He,  like  Plutarch,  describes  the  spot  where  Romulus 
had  resided,  and  says  expressly  that  the  hut  had  been  there,  but  that 
in  his  time  it  was  there  no  longer.  The  site,  it  is  certain,  was  well 
remembered ;  and  probably  retained  its  old  name,  as  Charing  Cross 
and  the  Hay  market  have  done.  This  is  probably  the  explanation  of  the 
words,  *  casa  Romuli,'  in  Victor's  description  of  the  Tenth  Region  of 
Rome,  under  Valentinian. 

*  Cicero  refers  twice  to  this  important  passage  in  Cato's  Antiquities : 
— "  Gravissimus  auctor  in  Originibus  dixit  Cato,  morum  apud  majores 
hunc  epularum  fuisse,  ut  deinceps,  qui  accubareut,  canerent  ad  tibiam 
clarorum  virorum  laudes  atque  virtutes.      Ex  quo  perspicuum   est,  et 


26  author's  preface. 

without  mentioning  his  authority,  and  observes  that  the 
ancient  Roman  ballads  were  probably  of  more  benefit  to  the 
young  than  all  the  lectures  of  the  Athenian  schools,  and  that 
to  the  influence  of  the  national  poetry  were  to  be  ascribed 
the  virtues  of  such  men  as  Camillus  and  Fabricius.* 

Varro,  whose  authority  on  all  questions  connected  with 
the  antiquities  of  his  country  is  entitled  to  the  greatest 
respect,  tells  us  that  at  banquets  it  was  once  the  fashion 
for  boys  to  sing,  sometimes  with  and  sometimes  without 
instrumental  music,  ancient  ballads  in  praise  of  men  of 
former  times.  These  young  performers,  he  observes, 
were  of  unblemished  character,  a  circumstance  which  he 
probably  mentioned  because,  among  the  Greeks,  and 
indeed  in  his  time  among  the  Romans  also,  the  morals  of 
singing-boys  were  in  no  high  repute,  f 

The  testimony  of  Horace,  though  given  incidentally, 
confirms  the  statements  of  Cato,  Valerius  Maximus,  and 
Varro.  The  poet  predicts  that,  under  the  peaceful  ad- 
ministration of  Augustus,  the  Romans  will,  over  their  full 
goblets,  sing  to  the  pipe,  after  the  fashion  of  their  fathers, 


cantus  turn  fuisse  rescriptos  vocum  sonis,  et  carmina." — Tusc. 
iv.  2.  Again:  "  Utinam  exstarent  ilia  carmina,  quse,  multus  sseculis 
ante  suarn  setatem,  in  epulis  esse  cantitata  a  singulis  convivis  de  clarorum 
virorum  laudibus,  in  Originibus  scriptum  reliquit  Cato."  —  Brutus,  xix. 

*  "  Majores  natu  in  conviviis  ad  tibias  egregia  superiorum  opera  car- 
mine comprehensa  pangebant,  quo  ad  ea  imitanda  juventutem  alacriorem 
redderent.  .  .  .  Quas  Atkenas,  quam  scholam,  quae  alienigena  studia 
huic  domestical  discipline  prsetulerim?  Inde  oriebantur  Camilli,  Scipi- 
ones,  Fabricii,  Marcelli,  Fabii." —  Val.  Max.  ii.  1. 

f  "  In  conviviis  pueri  modesti  ut  cantarent  carmina  antiqua,  in  quibus 
laudes  erant  majorum,  et  assa  voce,  et  cum  tibicine." —  Nonius,  Assa 
voce  pro  sola. 


author's  preface.  27 

the  deeds  of  brave  captains,  and  the  ancient  legends 
touching  the  origin  of  the  city.* 

The  proposition,  then,  that  Borne  had  ballad  poetry  is 
not  merely  in  itself  highly  probable,  but  is  fully  proved 
by  direct  evidence  of  the  greatest  weight. 

This  proposition  being  established,  it  becomes  easy 
to  understand  why  the  early  history  of  the  city  is  un- 
like almost  everything  else  in  Latin  literature,  native 
where  almost  everything  else  is  borrowed,  imaginative 
where  almost  everything  else  is  prosaic.  We  can  scarcely 
hesitate  to  pronounce  that  the  magnificent,  pathetic,  and 
truly  national  legends,  which  present  so  striking  a  contrast 
to  all  that  surrounds  them,  are  broken  and  defaced  frag- 
ments of  that  early  poetry  which,  even  in  the  age  of  Cato 
the  Censor,  had  become  antiquated,  and  of  which  Tully 
had  never  heard  a  line. 

That  this  poetry  should  have  been  suffered  to  perish  will 
not  appear  strange  when  we  consider  how  complete  was  the 
triumph  of  the  Greek  genius  over  the  public  mind  of  Italy. 
It  is  probable  that,  at  an  earlier  period,  Homer  and  Herodo- 
tus furnished  some  hints  to  the  Latin  minstrels :  t  but  it 
was  not  till  after  the  war  with  Pyrrhus  that  the  poetry  of 

*  "  Nosque  et  profestis  lucibus  et  sacris, 
Inter  jocosi  munera  Liberi, 
Cum  prole  matronisque  nostris, 
Rite  Deos  prius  apprecati, 
Virtute  functos,  more  patrum,  duces, 
Lydis  remixto  carmine  tibiis, 
Trojamque,  et  Anchisen,  et  almae 
Progeniem  Veneris  canemus." 

—  Carm.  iv.  15. 
t  See  the  Preface  to  the  Lay  of  the  Battle  of  Regillus. 


28  author's  preface. 

Some  began  to  put  off  its  old  Ausonian  character.  The 
transformation  was  soon  consummated.  The  conquered, 
says  Horace,  led  captive  the  conquerors.  It  was  precisely 
at  the  time  at  which  the  Roman  people  rose  to  unrivalled 
political  ascendancy  that  they  stooped  to  pass  under  the 
intellectual  yoke.  It  was  precisely  at  the  time  at  which 
the  sceptre  departed  from  Greece  that  the  empire  of  her 
language  and  of  her  arts  became  universal  and  despotic. 
The  revolution  indeed  was  not  effected  without  a  struggle. 
Nsevius  seems  to  have  been  the  last  of  the  ancient  line  of 
poets.  Ennius  was  the  founder  of  a  new  dynasty.  Naevius 
celebrated  the  First  Punic  War  in  Saturnian  verse,  the  old 
national  verse  of  Italy.*     Ennius  sang  the  Second  Punic 

*  Cicero  speaks  highly  in  more  than  one  place  of  this  poem  of  Nsevius  : 
Ennius  sneered  at  it,  and  stole  from  it. 

As  to  the  Saturnian  measure,  see  Hermann's  Elementa  Doctrinse 
Metricse,  iii.  9. 

The  Saturnian  line,  according  to  the  grammarians,  consisted  of  two 
parts.  The  first  was  a  catalectic  dimeter  iambic  ;  the  second  was  com- 
posed of  three  trochees.  But  the  licence  taken  by  the  early  Latin  poets 
seems  to  have  been  almost  boundless.  The  most  perfect  Saturnian  line 
which  has  been  preserved  was  the  work,  not  of  a  professional  artist,  but 
of  an  amateur : 

"  Dabunt  malum  Metelli  Nsevio  poetae." 

There  has  been  much  difference  of  opinion  among  learned  men  respect- 
ing the  history  of  this  measure.  That  it  is  the  same  with  a  Greek  meas- 
ure used  by  Archilochus  is  indisputable.  (Bentley,  Phalaris,  xi.)  But 
in  spite  of  the  authority  of  Terentianus  Maurus,  and  of  the  still  higher 
authority  of  Bentley,  we  may  venture  to  doubt  whether  the  coincidence 
was  not  fortuitous.  We  constantly  find  the  same  rude  and  simple  num- 
bers in  different  countries,  under  circumstances  which  make  it  impossible 
to  suspect  that  there  has  been  imitation  on  either  side.  Bishop  Heber 
heard  the  children  of  a  village  in  Bengal  singing  "  Radha,  Radha,"  to  the 
tune  of  "  My  boy  Billy."  Neither  the  Castilian  nor  the  German  minstrels 
of  the  middle  ages  owed  anything  to  Paros  or  to  ancient  Rome.    Yet  botl} 


author's  preface.  29 

War  in  numbers  borrowed  from  the  Iliad.  The  elder  poet, 
in  the  epitaph  which  he  wrote  for  himself,  and  which  is  a 
fine  specimen  of  the  early  Eoman  diction  and  versification, 

the  poem  of  the  Cid  and  the  poem  of  the  Nibelungs  contain  many  Satur- 
nian  verses  ;  as  — 

"  Estas  nuevas  a  mio  Cid  eran  venidas." 
"  A.  mi  lo  dicens ;  a  ti  dan  las  orejades." 

"  Man  mohte  michel  wunder  von  Sifride  sagen." 
"  Wa  ich  den  Kiinic  vinde  daz  sol  man  mir  sagen." 

Indeed  there  cannot  be  a  more  perfect  Saturnian  line  than  one  which  is 
sung  in  every  English  nursery  — 

"  The  queen  was  in  her  parlour  eating  bread  and  honey ;  " 

yet  the  author  of  this  line,  we  may  be  assured,  borrowed  nothing  from 
either  Naevius  or  Archilochus. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  by  no  means  improbable  that,  two  or  three 
hundred  years  before  the  time  of  Ennius,  some  Latin  minstrel  may  have 
visited  Sybaris  or  Crotona,  may  have  heard  some  verses  of  Archilochus 
sung,  may  have  been  pleased  with  the  metre,  and  may  have  introduced 
it  at  Rome.  Thus  much  is  certain,  that  the  Saturnian  measure,  if  not  a 
native  of  Italy,  was  at  least  so  early  and  so  completely  naturalised  there 
that  its  foreign  origin  was  forgotten. 

Bentley  says  indeed  that  the  Saturnian  measure  was  first  brought  from 
Greece  into  Italy  by  Naevius.  But  this  is  merely  obiter  dictum,  to  use 
a  phrase  common  in  our  courts  of  law,  and  would  not  have  been  deliber- 
ately maintained  by  that  incomparable  critic,  whose  memory  is  held  in 
reverence  by  all  lovers  of  learning.  The  arguments  which  might  be 
brought  against  Bentley's  assertion — for  it  is  mere  assertion,  supported 
by  no  evidence  —  are  innumerable.     A  few  will  suffice. 

(1)  Bentley's  assertion  is  opposed  to  the  testimony  of  Ennius.  Ennius 
sneered  at  Naevius  for  writing  on  the  First  Punic  War  in  verses  such  as 
the  old  Italian  bards  used  before  Greek  literature  had  been  studied.  Now 
the  poem  of  Naevius  was  in  Saturnian  verse.  Is  it  possible  that  Ennius 
could  have  used  such  expressions  if  the  Saturnian  verse  had  been  just 
imported  from  Greece  for  the  first  time? 

(2)  Bentley's  assertion  is  opposed  to  the  testimony  of  Horace.  "  When 
Greece,"  says  Horace,  ''introduced  her  arts  into  our  uncivilised  country, 
those  rugged  Saturnian  numbers  passed  away.''     Would  Horace  have  said 


30  author's  preface. 

plaintively  boasted  that  the  Latin  language  had  died  with 
him.#  Thus  what  to  Horace  appeared  to  be  the  first  faint 
dawn  of  Boman  literature,  appeared  to  ISTaevius  to  be  its 
hopeless  setting.  In  truth,  one  literature  was  setting,  and 
another  dawning. 

The  victory  of  the  foreign  taste  was  decisive :  and  indeed 
we  can  hardly  blame  the  Eomans  for  turning  away  with 
contempt  from  the  rude  lays  which  had  delighted  their 
fathers,  and  giving  their  whole  admiration  to  the  immortal 
productions  of  Greece.  The  national  romances,  neglected 
by  the  great  and  the  refined  whose  education  had  been  fin- 
ished at  Khodes  or  Athens,  continued,  it  may  be  supposed, 
during  some  generations,  to  delight  the  vulgar.  "While 
Virgil,  in  hexameters  of  exquisite  modulation,  described  the 
sports  of  rustics,  those  rustics  were  still  singing  their  wild 

this  if  the  Satumian  numbers  had  been  imported  from  Greece  just  before 
the  hexameter  ? 

(3)  Bentley's  assertion  is  opposed  to  the  testimony  of  Festus  and  of 
Aurelius  Victor,  both  of  whom  positively  say  that  the  most  ancient  pro- 
phecies attributed  to  the  Fauns  were  in  Saturnian  verse. 

(4)  Bentley's  assertion  is  opposed  to  the  testimony  of  Terentianus 
Maurus,  to  whom  he  has  himself  appealed.  Terentianus  Maurus  does 
indeed  say  that  the  Saturnian  measure,  though  believed  by  the  Romans 
from  a  very  early  period  ("  credidit  vetustas  ")  to  be  of  Italian  invention, 
was  really  borrowed  from  the  Greeks.  But  Terentianus  Maurus  does  not 
say  that  it  was  first  borrowed  by  Naevius.  Nay,  the  expressions  used  by 
Terentianus  Maurus  clearly  imply  the  contrary :  for  how  could  the  Romans 
have  believed,  from  a  very  early  period,  that  this  measure  was  the  indige- 
nous production  of  Latium,  if  it  was  really  brought  over  from  Greece  in 
an  age  of  intelligence  and  liberal  curiosity,  in  the  age  which  gave  birth  to 
Ennius,  Plautus,  Cato  the  Censor,  and  other  distinguished  writers?  If 
Bentley's  assertion  were  correct,  there  could  have  been  no  more  doubt  at 
Rome  about  the  Greek  origin  of  the  Saturnian  measure  than  about  the 
Greek  origin  of  hexameters  or  Sapphics. 

*  Aulus  Gellius,  Nodes  Atticse,  i.  24. 


author's  preface.  31 

Saturnian  ballads.*  It  is  not  improbable  that,  at  the  time 
when  Cicero  lamented  the  irreparable  loss  of  the  poems 
mentioned  by  Cato,  a  search  among  the  nooks  of  the  Apen- 
nines, as  active  as  the  search  which  Sir  Walter  Scott  made 
among  the  descendants  of  the  mosstroopers  of  Liddesdale, 
might  have  brought  to  light  many  fine  remains  of  ancient 
minstrelsy.  Xo  such  search  was  made.  The  Latin  ballads 
perished  forever.  Yet  discerning  critics  have  thought  that 
they  could  still  perceive  in  the  early  history  of  Rome 
numerous  fragments  of  this  lost  poetry,  as  the  traveller  on 
classic  ground  sometimes  finds,  built  into  the  heavy  wall  of 
a  fort  or  convent,  a  pillar  rich  with  acanthus  leaves,  or  a 
frieze  where  the  Amazons  and  Bacchanals  seem  to  live. 
The  theatres  and  temples  of  the  Greek  and  the  Roman 
were  degraded  into  the  quarries  of  the  Turk  and  the  Goth. 
Even  so  did  the  ancient  Saturnian  poetry  become  the 
quarry  in  which  a  crowd  of  orators  and  annalists  found  the 
materials  for  their  prose. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  trace  the  process  by  which  the  old 
songs  were  transmuted  into  the  form  which  they  now 
wear.  Funeral  panegyric  and  chronicle  appear  to  have 
been  the  intermediate  links  which  connected  the  lost  bal- 
lads with  the  histories  now  extant.  From  a  very  early 
period  it  was  the  usage  that  an  oration  should  be  pro- 
nounced over  the  remains  of  a  noble  Roman.  The  orator, 
as  we  learn  from  Polybius,  was  expected,  on  such  an 
occasion,  to  recapitulate  all  the  services  which  the  an- 
cestors of  the  deceased  had,  from  the  earliest  time,  ren- 
dered to  the  commonwealth.  There  can  be  little  doubt 
*See  Servius,  in  Georg.  ii.  385. 


32  AUTHOR  S   PREFACE. 

that  the  speaker  on  whom  this  duty  was  imposed  would 
make  use  of  all  the  stories  suited  to  his  purpose  which 
were  to  be  found  in  the  popular  lays.  There  can  be  as 
little  doubt  that  the  family  of  an  eminent  man  would 
preserve  a  copy  of  the  speech  which  had  been  pronounced 
over  his  corpse.  The  compilers  of  the  early  chronicles  would 
have  recourse  to  these  speeches  ;  and  the  great  historians  of 
a  later  period  would  have  recourse  to  the  chronicles. 

It  may  be  worth  while  to  select  a  particular  story,  and 
to  trace  its  probable  progress  through  these  stages.  The 
description  of  the  migration  of  the  Fabian  house  to 
Cremera  is  one  of  the  finest  of  the  many  fine  passages 
which  lie  thick  in  the  earlier  books  of  Livy.  The  Con- 
sul, clad  in  his  military  garb,  stands  in  the  vestibule  of 
his  house,  marshalling  his  clan,  three  hundred  and  six 
fighting  men,  all  of  the  same  proud  patrician  blood,  all 
worthy  to  be  attended  by  the  fasces  and  to  command 
the  legions.  A  sad  and  anxious  retinue  of  friends  accom- 
panies the  adventurers  through  the  streets ;  but  the  voice 
of  lamentation  is  drowned  by  the  shouts  of  admiring 
thousands.  As  the  procession  passes  the  Capitol,  prayers 
and  vows  are  poured  forth,  but  in  vain.  The  devoted 
band,  leaving  Janus  on  the  right,  marches  to  its  doom 
through  the  Gate  of  Evil  Luck.  After  achieving  high 
deeds  of  valour  against  overwhelming  numbers,  all  perish 
save  one  child,  the  stock  from  which  the  great  Fabian 
race  was  destined  again  to  spring  for  the  safety  and 
glory  of  the  commonwealth.  That  this  fine  romance, 
the  details  of  which  are  so  full  of  poetical  truth,  and 
so  utterly  destitute  of   all  show  of  historical    truth,  came 


AUTHOB  8    PREFA( 

ually  from  some  lay  which  had  ofl  i t li 

I  applause  at  banqu  in  the  hi 

\       is   it   difficult   to   imagine   a   i  i    which 

the  trans  iken  pi 

The    celebrated    Quintus    Fal  who    di 

about    twenty   years    before   the    Firsl     Punic    War, 
e   than   forty   y  fore   Enniua 

have    been  ii  with  extraordinary  pomp.     In   the 

eulogy   pronounced   over   his  all   the 

of  h  .re   doul 

ated.      If    there   were    then   extanl  -    which 

vivid   and   I  d    of   an  event, 

and    the  most  glorious  in  the    I  bian 

:ig  could  b»  ral  than 

songs  th< 
in   order   to   ad<  A    ; 

aid  perhaps  be 

aid   vin<  -  3.      1  >u1 

in    the    arehi  the     Fabian 

nob!  -    Pictor   would    be   well    acquainted   with 

a   document    so    intere>  .   ami 

would  insert  large  exti  ra  it  in 

-    the   oldest    to   which 
Li\ ;. 

bold  st. 

le   nan-  they    w< 

ich    them    with    a    deli'  and 

raid  make  them  immortal. 
.  it    this    might    ha] 
doul  py   like   thia  happened  in 


34  author's  preface. 

several  countries,  and,  among  others,  in  our  own.  Per- 
haps the  theory  of  Perizonius  cannot  be  better  illustrated 
than  by  showing  that  what  he  supposes  to  have  taken 
place  in  ancient  times  has,  beyond  all  doubt,  taken  place 
in  modern  times. 

"History,"  says  Hume  with  the  utmost  gravity,  "has 
preserved  some  instances  of  Edgar's  amours,  from  which, 
as  from  a  specimen,  we  may  form  a  conjecture  of  the 
rest."  He  then  tells  very  agreeably  the  stories  of  Elfleda 
and  Elfrida,  two  stories  which  have  a  most  suspicious 
air  of  romance,  and  which,  indeed,  greatly  resemble  in 
their  general  character  some  of  the  legends  of  early 
Rome.  He  cites,  as  his  authority  for  these  two  tales, 
the  chronicle  of  William  of  Malmesbury,  who  lived  in 
the  time  of  King  Stephen.  The  great  majority  of  readers 
suppose  that  the  device  by  which  Elfrida  was  substi- 
tuted for  her  young  mistress,  the  artifice  by  which  Athel- 
wold  obtained  the  hand  of  Elfrida,  the  detection  of  that 
artifice,  the  hunting  party,  and  the  vengeance  of  the 
amorous  king,  are  things  about  which  there  is  no  more 
doubt  than  about  the  execution  of  Anne  Boleyn  or  the 
slitting  of  Sir  John  Coventry's  nose.  But  when  we  turn 
to  William  of  Malmesbury,  we  find  that  Hume,  in  his 
eagerness  to  relate  these  pleasant  fables,  has  overlooked 
one  very  important  circumstance.  William  does  indeed 
tell  both  the  stories ;  but  he  gives  us  distinct  notice  that 
he  does  not  warrant  their  truth,  and  that  they  rest  on 
no  better  authority  than  that  of  ballads.* 

*  "  Infamias  quas  post  dicam  magis  resperserunt  cantilena?."  Edgar 
appears  to  have  been  most  mercilessly  treated  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  ballads. 


author's  preface.  35 

Such  is  the  way  in  which  those  two  well-known  tales 
have  been  handed  down.  They  originally  appeared  in  a 
poetical  form.  They  found  their  way  from  ballads  into 
an  old  chronicle.  The  ballads  perished ;  the  chronicle 
remained.  A  great  historian,  some  centuries  after  the 
ballads  had  been  altogether  forgotten,  consulted  the  chron- 
icle. He  was  struck  by  the  lively  colouring  of  these 
ancient  fictions ;  he  transferred  them  to  his  pages ;  and 
thus  we  find  inserted,  as  unquestionable  facts,  in  a  narra- 
tive which  is  likely  to  last  as  long  as  the  English  tongue, 
the  inventions  of  some  minstrel  whose  works  were  prob- 
ably never  committed  to  writing,  whose  name  is  buried 
in  oblivion,  and  whose  dialect  has  become  obsolete.  It 
must,  then,  be  admitted  to  be  possible,  or  rather  highly 
probable,  that  the  stories  of  Eomulus  and  Kemus,  and  of 
the  Horatii  and  Curiatii,  may  have  had  a  similar  origin. 

Castilian  literature  will  furnish  us  with  another  parallel 
case.  Mariana,  the  classical  historian  of  Spain,  tells  the 
story  of  the  ill-starred  marriage  which  the  King  Don 
Alonso  brought  about  between  the  heirs  of  Carrion  and 
the  two  daughters  of  the  Cid.  The  Cid  bestowed  a 
princely  clower  on  his  sons-in-law.  But  the  young  men 
were  base  and  proud,  cowardly  and  cruel.  They  were 
tried  in  danger  and  found  wanting.  They  fled  before 
the  Moors,  and  once,  when  a  lion  broke  out  of  his  den, 
they  ran  and  crouched  in  an  unseemly  hiding-place. 
They  knew  that  they  were  despised,  and  took  counsel 
how  they   might   be  avenged.      They   parted    from   their 

He  was  the  favourite  of  the  monks  j  and  the  monks  and  the  minstrels 
were  at  deadly  feud. 


36  author's  preface. 

father-in-law  with  many  signs  of  love,  and  set  forth  on 
a  journey  with  Dona  Elvira  and  Dona  Sol.  In  a  soli- 
tary place  the  bridegrooms  seized  their  brides,  stripped 
them,  sconrged  them,  and  departed,  leaving  them  for 
dead.  But  one  of  the  house  of  Bivar,  suspecting  foul 
play,  had  followed  the  travellers  in  disguise.  The  ladies 
were  brought  back  safe  to  the  house  of  their  father.  Com- 
plaint was  made  to  the  king.  It  was  adjudged  by  the 
Cortes  that  the  dower  given  by  the  Cid  should  be  re- 
turned, and  that  the  heirs  of  Carrion  together  with  one  of 
their  kindred  should  do  battle  against  three  knights  of  the 
party  of  the  Cid.  The  guilty  youths  would  have  declined 
the  combat;  but  all  their  shifts  were  vain.  They  were 
vanquished  in  the  lists,  and  for  ever  disgraced,  while  their 
injured  wives  were  sought  in  marriage  by  great  princes.* 

Some  Spanish  writers  have  laboured  to  show,  by  an 
examination  of  dates  and  circumstances,  that  this  story  is 
untrue.  Such  confutation  was  surely  not  needed ;  for  the 
narrative  is  on  the  face  of  it  a  romance.  How  it  found 
its  way  into  Mariana's  history  is  quite  clear.  He  acknowl- 
edges his  obligations  to  the  ancient  chronicles;  and  had 
doubtless  before  him  the  "  Cronica  del  famoso  Cavallero  Cid 
Buy  Diez  Campeador,"  which  had  been  printed  as  early 
as  the  year  1552.  He  little  suspected  that  all  the  most 
striking  passages  in  this  chronicle  were  copied  from  a  poem 
of  the  twelfth  century,  a  poem  of  which  the  language  and 
versification  had  long  been  obsolete,  but  which  glowed  with 
no  common  portion  of  the  fire  of  the  Iliad.  Yet  such  was 
the  fact.     More  than  a  century  and  a  half  after  the  death 

*  Mariana,  lib.  x.  cap.  4. 


author's  preface.  37 

of  Mariana,  this  venerable  ballad,  of  which  one  imperfect 
copy  on  parchment,  four  hundred  years  old,  had  been  pre- 
served at  Bivar,  was  for  the  first  time  printed.  Then  it 
was  found  that  every  interesting  circumstance  of  the  story 
of  the  heirs  of  Carrion  was  derived  by  the  eloquent  Jesuit 
from  a  song  of  which  he  had  never  heard,  and  which  was 
composed  by  a  minstrel  whose  very  name  had  long  been 
forgotten.* 

Such,  or  nearly  such,  appears  to  have  been  the  process 
by  which,  the  lost  ballad-poetry  of  Rome  was  transformed 
into  history.  To  reverse  that  process,  to  transform  some 
portions  of  early  Eoman  history  back  into  the  poetry  out 
of  which  they  were  made,  is  the  object  of  this  work. 

In  the  following  poems  the  author  speaks,  not  in  his 
own  person,  but  in  the  persons  of  ancient  minstrels  who 
know  only  what  a  Roman  citizen,  born  three  or  four 
hundred  years  before  the  Christian  era,  ma}'  be  supposed 
to  have  known,  and  who  are  in  nowise  above  the  passions 
and  prejudices  of  their  age  and  nation.  To  these  imagi- 
nary poets  must  be  ascribed  some  blunders  which  are  so 
obvious  that  it  is  unnecessary  to  point  them  out.  The 
real  blunder  would  have  been  to  represent  these  old 
poets  as  deeply  versed  in  general  history,  and  studious  of 
chronological  accuracy.  To  them  must  also  be  attributed 
the  illiberal  sneers  at  the  Greeks,  the  furious  party-spirit, 
the  contempt  for  the  arts  of  peace,  the  love  of  war  for 
its    own    sake,   the    ungenerous    exultation   over   the   van- 

*See  the  account  which  Sanchez  gives  of  the  Bivar  manuscript  in  the 
first  volume  of  the  Coleccion  de  Poesias  Castollanas  anteriores  al  Siglo 
XV.  Part  of  the  story  of  the  lords  of  Carrion,  in  the  poem  of  the  Cid,  has 
been  translated  by  Mr.  Frere  in  a  manner  above  all  praise. 


38  author's  preface. 

quished,  which  the  reader  will  sometimes  observe.  To 
portray  a  Roman  of  the  age  of  Camillus  or  Curius  as 
superior  to  national  antipathies,  as  mourning  over  the 
devastation  and  slaughter  by  which  empire  and  triumphs 
were  to  be  won,  as  looking  on  human  suffering  with  the 
sympathy  of  Howard,  or  as  treating  conquered  enemies 
with  the  delicacy  of  the  Black  Prince,  would  be  to  vio- 
late all  dramatic  propriety.  The  old  Romans  had  some 
great  virtues,  fortitude,  temperance,  veracity,  spirit  to 
resist  oppression,  respect  for  legitimate  authority,  fidelity 
in  the  observing  of  contracts,  disinterestedness,  ardent 
patriotism  ;  but  Christian  charity  and  chivalrous  generosity 
were  alike  unknown  to  them. 

It  would  have  been  obviously  improper  to  mimic  the 
manner  of  any  particular  age  or  country.  Something  has 
been  borrowed,  however,  from  our  own  old  ballads,  and 
more  from  Sir  Walter  Scott,  the  great  restorer  of  our 
ballad-poetry.  To  the  Iliad  still  greater  obligations  are 
due ;  and  those  obligations  have  been  contracted  with 
the  less  hesitation,  because  there  is  reason  to  believe  that 
some  of  the  old  Latin  minstrels  really  had  recourse  to 
that  inexhaustible  store  of  poetical  images. 

It  would  have  been  easy  to  swell  this  little  volume  to 
a  very  considerable  bulk,  by  appending  notes  filled  with 
Quotations;  but  to  a  learned  reader  such  notes  are  not 
necessary ;  for  an  unlearned  reader  they  would  have 
little  interest;  and  the  judgment  passed  both  by  the 
learned  and  by  the  unlearned  on  a  work  of  the  imagina- 
tion will  always  depend  much  more  on  the  general  char- 
acter and  spirit  of  such  a  work  than  on  minute  details. 


LAYS  OF  AXCIEXT  ROME. 


o»;o 


HORATIUS. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  among  those  parts  of  early 
Roman  history  which  had  a  poetical  origin  was  the  legend 
of  Horatius  Codes.  We  have  several  versions  of  the  story, 
and  these  versions  differ  from  each  other  in  points  of  no 
small  importance.  Polybius,  there  is  reason  to  believe, 
heard  the  tale  recited  over  the  remains  of  some  Consul  or 
Praetor  descended  from  the  old  Horatian  patricians ;  for 
he  introduces  it  as  a  specimen  of  the  narratives  with  which 
the  Romans  were  in  the  habit  of  embellishing  their  funeral 
oratory.  It  is  remarkable  that,  according  to  him,  Horatius 
defended  the  bridge  alone,  and  perished  in  the  waters.  Ac- 
cording to  the  chronicles  which  Livy  and  Dionysius  fol- 
lowed, Horatius  had  two  companions,  swam  safe  ashore, 
and  was  loaded  with  honours  and  rewards. 

These  discrepancies  are  easily  explained.  Our  own  liter- 
ature, indeed,  will  furnish  an  exact  parallel  to  what  may 
have  taken  place  at  Rome.  It  is  highly  probable  that  the 
memory  of  the  war  of  Porsena  was  preserved  by  composi- 
tions much  resembling  the  two  ballads  which  stand  first  in 
the  Belies  of  Ancient  English  Poetry.  In  both  those  ballads 
the  English,  commanded  by  the  Percy,  fight  with  the  Scots. 
commanded  by  the  Douglas.  In  one  of  the  ballads  the 
Douglas  is  killed  by  a  nameless  English  archer,  and  the 
Percy  by   a  Scottish   spearman :    in  the  other,   the    Percy 

39 


40  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT    ROME. 

slays  the  Douglas  in  single  combat,  and  is  himself  made 
prisoner.  In  the  former,  Sir  Hugh  Montgomery  is  shot 
through  the  heart  by  a  Northumbrian  bowman:  in  the 
latter  he  is  taken  and  exchanged  for  the  Percy.  Yet  both 
the  ballads  relate  to  the  same  event,  and  that  an  event 
which  probably  took  place  within  the  memory  of  persons 
who  were  alive  when  both  the  ballads  were  made.  One  of 
the  minstrels  says: 

14  Old  men  that  knowen  the  grounde  well  yenoughe 
Call  it  the  battell  of  Otterburn  : 
At  Otterburn  began  this  spurne 
Upon  a  monnyn  day. 
Ther  was  the  clougghte  Doglas  slean : 
The  Perse  never  went  away." 

The  other  poet  sums  up  the  event  in  the  following  lines  : 

"  Thys  fraye  bygan  at  Otterborne 
Bytwene  the  nyghte  and  the  day  : 
Ther  the  Dowglas  lost  hys  lyfe, 
And  the  Percy  was  lede  away." 

It  is  by  no  means  unlikely  that  there  were  two  old  Roman 
lays  about  the  defence  of  the  bridge ;  and  that,  while  the 
story  which  Livy  has  transmitted  to  us  was  preferred  by 
the  multitude,  the  other,  which  ascribed  the  whole  glory 
to  Horatius  alone,  may  have  been  the  favourite  with  the 
Horatian  house. 

The  following  ballad  is  supposed  to  have  been  made 
about  a  hundred  and  twenty  years  after  the  war  which  it 
celebrates,  and  just  before  the  taking  of  Rome  by  the  Gauls. 
The  author  seems  to  have  been  an  honest  citizen,  proud 
of  the  military  glory  of  his  country,  sick  of  the  disputes  of 
factions,  and  much  given  to  pining  after  good  old  times 
which  had  never  really  existed.  The  allusion,  however, 
to    the    partial    manner    in    which    the    public    lands    were 


HOKATIUS.  41 

allotted  could  proceed  only  from  a  plebeian ;  and  the  allu- 
sion to  the  fraudulent  sale  of  spoils  marks  the  date  of  the 
poem,  and  shows  that  the  poet  shared  in  the  general  dis- 
content with  which  the  proceedings  of  Camillus,  after  the 
taking  of  Yeii,  were  regarded. 

The  penultimate  syllable  of  the  name  Porsena  has  been 
shortened  in  spite  of  the  authority  of  Xiebuhr,  who  pro- 
nounces, without  assigning  any  ground  for  his  opinion  that 
Martial  was  guilty  of  a  decided  blunder  in  the  line, 

"  Hanc  spectare  manum  Porsena  non  potuit." 

It  is  not  easy  to  understand  how  any  modern  scholar, 
whatever  his  attainments  may  be,  —  and  those  of  Niebuhr 
were  undoubtedly  immense,  —  can  venture  to  pronounce 
that  Martial  did  not  know  the  quantity  of  a  word  which 
he  must  have  uttered  and  heard  uttered  a  hundred  times 
before  he  left  school.  Niebuhr  seems  also  to  have  forgotten 
that  Martial  has  fellow-culprits  to  keep  him  in  countenance. 
Horace  has  committed  the  same  decided  blunder ;  for  he 
gives  us,  as  a  pure  iambic  line, 

"  Minacis  aut  Etrusca  Porsena}  manus." 

Silius  Italicus  has  repeatedly  offended  in  the  same  way,  as 
when  he  says, 

"  Cernitur  effugiens  ardentem  Porsena  dextram  :  " 

and  again, 

Clusinum  vulgus,  cum,  Porsena  magne,  jubebas." 

A  modern  writer  may  be  content  to  err  in  such  company. 

Xiebuhr's  supposition  that  each  of  the  three  defenders 
of  the  bridge  was  the  representative  of  one  of  the  three 
patrician  tribes  is  both  ingenious  and  probable,  and  has 
been  adopted  in  the  following  poem. 


HORATIUS. 

A    LAY    MADE    ABOUT    THE    TEAR    OF    THE    CITY    CCCLX.1 


I. 

Lars  Porsexa  2  of  Clusium 3 

By  the  Nine  Gods4  he  swore 
That  the  great  house  of  Tarquin 6 

Should  suffer  wrong  no  more. 
By  the  Nine  Gods  he  swore  it,  5 

And  named  a  trysting  day, 
And  bade  his  messengers  ride  forth, 
East  and  west  and  south  and  north, 

To  summon  his  array. 

ii. 

East  and  wrest  and  south  and  north  10 

The  messengers  ride  fast, 
And  tower  and  town  and  cottage 

Have  heard  the  trumpet's  blast. 
Shame  on  the  false  Etruscan 

Who  lingers  in  his  home,  15 

When  Porsena  of  Clusium 

Is  on  the  march  for  Home. 

in. 

The  horsemen  and  the  footmen 

Are  pouring  in  amain 
From  many  a  stately  market-place  ;  20 

From  many  a  fruitful  plain  ; 
42 


HORATIUS.  43 

From  many  a  lonely  hamlet, 

Which,  hid  by  beech  and  pine, 
Like  an  eagle's  nest,  hangs  on  the  crest 

Of  purple  Apennine  ;  25 

IV. 

From  lordly  Yolaterrae,6 

Where  scowls  the  far-famed  hold 
Piled  by  the  hands  of  giants 

For  godlike  kings  of  old  ; 
From  seagirt  Populonia,7  30 

Whose  sentinels  descry 
Sardinia's  snowy  mountain-tops 

Fringing  the  southern  sky ; 


From  the  proud  mart  of  Pisae,8 

Queen  of  the  western  waves,  35 

Where  ride  Massilia's9  triremes 

Heavy  with  fair-haired  slaves  ; 
From  where  sweet  Clanis 10  wanders 

Through  corn  and  vines  and  flowers ; 
From  where  Cortona  "  lifts  to  heaven  40 

Her  diadem  of  towers. 

VI. 

Tall  are  the  oaks  whose  acorns 

Drop  in  dark  Auser's 12  rill ; 
Fat  are  the  stags  that  champ  the  boughs 

Of  the  Ciminian  hill 13 ;  45 

Beyond  all  streams  Clitumnus  M 

Is  to  the  herdsman  dear ; 
Best  of  all  pools  the  fowler  loves 

The  great  Volsinian  mere.15 


44  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT    ROME. 


VII. 

But  now  no  stroke  of  woodman  50 

Is  heard  by  Auser's  rill ; 
No  hunter  tracks  the  stag's  green  path 

Up  the  Ciminian  hill ; 
Unwatched  along  Clitumnus 

Grazes  the  milk-white  steer  ;  55 

Unharmed  the  water  fowl  may  dip 

In  the  Volsinian  mere. 

VIII. 

The  harvests  of  Arretium,16 

This  year,  old  men  shall  reap, 
This  year,  young  boys  in  Umbro 17  60 

Shall  plunge  the  struggling  sheep; 
And  in  the  vats  of  Luna,18 

This  year,  the  must  shall  foam 
Round  the  white  feet  of  laughing  girls 

Whose  sires  have  marched  to  Rome.  65 

IX. 

There  be  thirty  chosen  prophets, 

The  wisest  of  the  land, 
Who  always  by  Lars  Porsena 

Both  morn  and  evening  stand : 
Evening  and  morn  the  Thirty  70 

Have  turned  the  verses  o'er, 
Traced  from  the  right  on  linen  white 19 

By  mighty  seers  of  yore. 

x. 

And  with  one  voice  the  Thirty 

Have  their  glad  answer  given :  75 

"  Go  forth,  go  forth,  Lars  Porsena ; 

Go  forth,  beloved  of  Heaven ; 


HORATIUS.  45 

Go,  and  return  in  glory 

To  Clusium's  royal  dome  ; 
And  hang  round  Nurscia's ^  altars  80 

The  golden  shields 21  of  Rome." 

XI. 

And  now  hath  every  city 

Sent  up  her  tale  of  men  ; 
The  foot  are  fourscore  thousand, 

The  horse  are  thousands  ten :  85 

Before  the  gates  of  Sutrium22 

Is  met  the  great  array. 
A  proud  man  was  Lars  Porsena 

Upon  the  try  sting  day. 

XII. 

For  all  the  Etruscan  armies  90 

Were  ranged  beneath  his  eye, 
And  many  a  banished  Roman, 

And  many  a  stout  ally ; 
And  with  a  mighty  following 

To  join  the  muster  came  95 

The  Tusculan  Mamilius,23 

Prince  of  the  Latian  name. 

XIII. 

But  by  the  yellow  Tiber24 

Was  tumult  and  affright : 
From  all  the  spacious  champaign 25  100 

To  Rome  men  took  their  flight. 
A  mile  around  the  city, 

The  throng  stopped  up  the  ways ; 
A  fearful  sight  it  was  to  see 

Through  two  long  nights  and  days.  105 


46  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT    ROME. 

XIV. 

For  aged  folks  on  crutches, 

And  women  great  with  child, 
And  mothers  sobbing  over  babes 

That  clung  to  them  and  smiled. 
And  sick  men  borne  in  litters  110 

High  on  the  necks  of  slaves, 
And  troops  of  sun-burned  husbandmen 

With  reaping-hooks  and  staves, 

xv. 

And  droves  of  mules  and  asses 

Laden  with  skins 26  of  wine,  115 

And  endless  flocks  of  goats  and  sheep, 

And  endless  herds  of  kine, 
And  endless  trains  of  wagons 

That  creaked  beneath  the  weight 
Of  corn-sacks  and  of  household  goods,  120 

Choked  every  roaring  gate. 

XVI. 

Now,  from  the  rock  Tarpeian,27 

Could  the  wan  burghers  spy 
The  line  of  blazing  villages 

Red  in  the  midnight  sky.  125 

The  Fathers  of  the  City,28 

They  sat  all  night  and  day, 
For  every  hour  some  horseman  came 

With  tidings  of  dismay. 

XVII. 

To  eastward  and  to  westward  130 

Have  spread  the  Tuscan  bands ; 

Nor  house,  nor  fence,  nor  dovecote 
In  Crustumerium  ^  stands. 


HORATIUS.  47 

Verbenna  down  to  Ostia30 

Hath  wasted  all  the  plain ;  135 

Astur  hath  stormed  Janiculum,31 

And  the  stout  guards  are  slain. 

XVIII. 

I  wis,  in  all  the  Senate, 

There  was  no  heart  so  bold, 
But  sore  it  ached  and  fast  it  beat,  no 

When  that  ill  news  was  told. 
Forthwith  up  rose  the  Consul,32 

Up  rose  the  Fathers  all ; 
In  haste  they  girded  up  their  gowns, 

And  hied  them  to  the  wall.  145 ' 

XIX. 

They  held  a  council  standing 

Before  the  River-Gate  ^ ; 
Short  time  was  there,  ye  well  may  guess, 

For  musing  or  debate. 
Out  spake  the  Consul  roundly  :  150 

"  The  bridge 34  must  straight  go  down  ; 
For,  since  Janiculum  is  lost, 

Nought  else  can  save  the  town." 

xx. 

Just  then  a  scout  came  flying, 

All  wild  with  haste  and  fear  ;  155 

"  To  arms  !  to  arms  !  Sir  Consul  : 

Lars  Porsena  is  here." 
On  the  low  hills  to  westward 

The  Consul  fixed  his  eye, 
And  saw  the  swarthy  storm  of  dust  160 

Eise  fast  along  the  sky. 


48  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT    ROME. 


XXI. 

And  nearer  fast  and  nearer 

Doth  the  red  whirlwind  come ; 
And  louder  still  and  still  more  loud, 
From  underneath  that  rolling  cloud,  165 

Is  heard  the  trumpet's  war-note  proud, 

The  trampling,  and  the  hum. 
And  plainly  and  more  plainly 

Now  through  the  gloom  appears, 
Far  to  left  and  far  to  right,  170 

In  broken  gleams  of  dark-blue  light, 
The  long  array  of  helmets  bright, 

The  long  array  of  spears. 

XXII. 

And  plainly  and  more  plainly, 

Above  that  glimmering  line,  175 

Now  might  ye  see  the  banners 

Of  twelve  fair  cities  shine35; 
But  the  banner  of  proud  Clusium 

Was  highest  of  them  all, 
The  terror  of  the  Umbrian,  180 

The  terror  of  the  Gaul. 

XXIII. 

And  plainly  and  more  plainly 

Now  might  the  burghers  know, 
By  port  and  vest,  by  horse  and  crest, 

Each  warlike  Lucumo.36  185 

There  Cilnius 37  of  Arretium 

On  his  fleet  roan  was  seen ; 
And  Astur  of  the  four-fold  shield,38 
Girt  with  the  brand  none  else  may  wield, 


HORATIUS.  49 

Tolumnius  with  the  belt  of  gold,  190 

And  dark  Verbenna  from  the  hold 
By  reedy  Thrasyniene.39 

XXIV. 

Fast  by  the  royal  standard, 

O'erlooking  all  the  war, 
Lars  Porsena  of  Clusium  195 

Sat  in  his  ivory  car. 
By  the  right  wheel  rode  Marnilius, 

Prince  of  the  Latian  name; 
And  by  the  left  false  Sextus,40 

That  wrought  the  deed  of  shame.  200 


XXV. 

But  when  the  face  of  Sextus 

Was  seen  among  the  foes, 
A  yell  that  rent  the  firmament 

From  all  the  town  arose. 
On  the  house-tops  was  no  woman  205 

But  spat  towards  him  and  hissed, 
No  child,  but  screamed  out  curses, 

And  shook  its  little  fist. 

XXVI. 

But  the  Consul's  brow  was  sad, 

And  the  Consul's  speech  was  low,  210 

And  darkly  looked  he  at  the  wall, 

And  darkly  at  the  foe. 
"  Their  van  will  be  upon  us 

Before  the  bridge  goes  down ; 
And  if  they  once  may  win  the  bridge,  215 

What  hope  to  save  the  town  ?  " 


50  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT    ROME. 


XXVII. 


Then  out  spake  brave  Horatius, 

The  Captain  of  the  Gate  41 : 
"  To  every  man  upon  this  earth 

Death  eometh  soon  or  late.  220 

And  how  can  man  die  better 

Than  facing  fearful  odds, 
For  the  ashes  of  his  fathers. 

And  the  temples  of  his  Gods, 

XXVIII. 

"  And  for  the  tender  mother  225 

Who  dandled  him  to  rest, 
And  for  the  wife  who  nurses 

His  baby  at  her  breast, 
And  for  the  holy  maidens  e 

Who  feed  the  eternal  flame,  230 

To  save  them  from  false  Sextus 

That  wrought  the  deed  of  shame  ? 

XXIX. 

"  Hevr  down  the  bridge,  Sir  Consul, 

With  all  the  speed  ye  may  ; 
I,  with  two  more  to  help  me,  235 

Will  hold  the  foe  in  play. 
In  yon  strait  path 43  a  thousand 

May  well  be  stopped  by  three. 
Xow  who  will  stand  on  either  hand, 

And  keep  the  bridge  with  me  ?  "  240 

xxx. 

Then  out  spake  Spurius  Lartius  ; 

A  Kamnian 44  proud  was  he  : 
"Lo,  I  will  stand  at  thy  right  hand, 


HORATIUS.  51 

And  keep  the  bridge  with  thee." 
And  out  spake  strong  Herminius ;  245 

Of  Titian45  blood  was  he  : 
"  I  will  abide  on  thy  left  side, 

And  keep  the  bridge  with  thee." 

XXXI. 

"  Horatius,"  quoth  the  Consul, 

"  As  thou  sayest,  so  let  it  be."  250 

And  straight  against  that  great  array 

Forth  went  the  dauntless  Three. 
For  Romans  in  Rome's  quarrel 

Spared  neither  land  nor  gold, 
Nor  son  nor  wife,  nor  limb  nor  life,  255 

In  the  brave  days  of  old. 

XXXII. 

Then  none  was  for  a  party ; 

Then  all  were  for  the  state ; 
Then  the  great  man  helped  the  poor, 

And  the  poor  man  loved  the  great :  260 

Then  lands  were  fairly  portioned 4,; ; 

Then  spoils  were  fairly  sold  : 
The  Romans  were  like  brothers 

In  the  brave  days  of  old. 

XXXIII. 

Now  Roman  is  to  Roman  265 

More  hateful  than  a  foe, 
And  the  Tribunes  beard  the  high, 

And  the  Fathers  grind  the  low. 
As  we  wax  hot  in  faction, 

In  battle  we  wax  cold  :  270 

Wherefore  men  fight  not  as  they  fought 

In  the  brave  days  of  old. 


52  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT    ROME. 


XXXIV. 

Now  while  the  Three  were  tightening 

Their  harness  on  their  backs, 
The  Consul  was  the  foremost  man  275 

To  take  in  hand  an  axe  : 
And  Fathers  mixed  with  Commons 

Seized  hatchet,  bar,  and  crow, 
And  smote  upon  the  planks  above, 

And  loosed  the  props  below.  280 

XXXV. 

Meanwhile  the  Tuscan  army, 

Eight  glorious  to  behold, 
Came  flashing  back  the  noonday  light, 
Bank  behind  rank,  like  surges  bright 

Of  a  broad  sea  of  gold.  285 

Four  hundred  trumpets  sounded 

A  peal  of  warlike  glee, 
As  that  great  host,  with  measured  tread, 
And  spears  advanced,  and  ensigns  spread, 
Soiled  slowly  towards  the  bridge's  head,  290 

"Where  stood  the  dauntless  Three. 

XXXVI. 

The  Three  stood  calm  and  silent, 

And  looked  upon  the  foes, 
And  a  great  shout  of  laughter 

From  all  the  vanguard  rose  :  295 

And  forth  three  chiefs  came  spurring 

Before  that  deep  array  ; 
To  earth  they  sprang,  their  swords  they  drew, 
And  lifted  high  their  shields,  and  flew 

To  win  the  narrow  way  :  300 


HORATIUS.  53 


XXXVII. 

Aunus  from  green  Tifernum,47 

Lord  of  the  Hill  of  Vines  ; 
And  Seius,  whose  eight  hundred  slaves 

Sicken  in  Ilva's  48  mines  ; 
And  Picus,  long  to  Clusium  305 

Vassal  in  peace  and  war, 
Who  led  to  fight  his  Umbrian  powers 
Prom  that  grey  crag  where,  girt  with  towers, 
The  fortress  of  Nequinum  49  lowers 

O'er  the  pale  waves  of  Nar.  310 

XXXVIII. 

Stout  Lartius  hurled  down  Aunus 

Into  the  stream  beneath  : 
Herminius  struck  at  Seius, 

And  clove  him  to  the  teeth  : 
At  Picus  brave  Horatius  315 

Darted  one  fiery  thrust ; 
And  the  proud  Umbrian's  gilded  arms 

Clashed  in  the  bloody  dust. 

XXXIX. 

Then  Ocnus  of  Falerii  ^ 

Rushed  on  the  Roman  Three  ;  320 

And  Lausulus  of  Urgo,51 

The  rover  of  the  sea; 
And  Aruns  of  Volsinium,52 

Who  slew  the  great  wild  boar, 
The  great  wild  boar  that  had  his  den  325 

Amidst  the  reeds  of  Cosa's53  fen, 
And  wasted  fields,  and  slaughtered  men. 

Alono-  Albinia's54  shore. 


54  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT    ROME. 


XL. 

Herminius  smote  down  Aruns  : 

Lartius  laid  Ocnus  low  :  330 

Right  to  the  heart  of  Lausulus 

Horatius  sent  a  blow. 
"  Lie  there,"  he  cried,  "  fell  pirate ! 

No  more,  aghast  and  pale, 
From  Ostia's  walls  the  crowd  shall  mark  335 

The  track  of  thy  destroying  bark. 
No  more  Campania's  hinds  shall  fly 
To  woods  and  caverns  when  they  spy 

Thy  thrice  accursed  sail." 

XLI. 

But  now  no  sound  of  laughter  340 

Was  heard  among  the  foes. 
A  wild  and  wrathful  clamour 

From  all  the  vanguard  rose. 
Six  spears'  lengths  from  the  entrance 

Halted  that  deep  array,  345 

But  for  a  space  no  man  came  forth 

To  win  the  narrow  way. 

XLII. 

But  hark  !  the  cry  is  Astur : 

And  lo  !  the  ranks  divide ; 
And  the  great  Lord  of  Luna  350 

Comes  with  his  stately  stride. 
Upon  his  ample  shoulders 

Clangs  loud  the  fourfold  shield, 
And  in  his  hand  he  shakes  the  brand 

Which  none  but  he  can  wield.  355 


HORATIUS.  55 


XLTII. 

He  smiled  on  those  bold  Romans 

A  smile  serene  and  high  ; 
He  eyed  the  flinching  Tuscans, 

And  scorn  was  in  his  eye. 
Quoth  he,  "  The  she-wolfs  litter55  360 

Stand  savagely  at  bay : 
But  will  ye  dare  to  follow, 

If  Astur  clears  the  way  ?" 


XLIV. 

Then,  whirling  up  his  broadsword 

With  both  hands  to  the  height,  365 

He  rushed  against  Horatius, 

And  smote  with  all  his  might. 
With  shield  and  blade  Horatius 

Eight  deftly  turned  the  blow. 
The  blow,  though  turned,  came  yet  too  nigh  ;  370 
It  missed  his  helm,  but  gashed  his  thigh  : 
The  Tuscans  raised  a  joyful  cry 

To  see  the  red  blood  flow. 


XLV. 

He  reeled,  and  on  Herminius 

He  leaned  one  breathing-space ;  375 

Then,  like  a  wild  cat  mad  with  wounds, 

Sprang  right  at  Astur's  face ; 
Through  teeth,  and  skull,  and  helmet 

So  fierce  a  thrust  he  sped, 
The  good  sword  stood  a  hand-breadth  out         380 

Behind  the  Tuscan's  head. 


56  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT    ROME. 

XLYI. 

And  the  great  Lord  of  Luna 

Fell  at  that  deadly  stroke, 
As  falls  on  Mount  Alvernus 56 

A  thunder-smitten  oak.  385 

Far  o'er  the  crashing  forest 

The  giant  arms  lie  spread ; 
And  the  pale  augurs,  muttering  low, 

Gaze  on  the  blasted  head.57 

XL  VII. 

On  Astur's  throat  Horatius  390 

Eight  firmly  pressed  his  heel, 
And  thrice  and  four  times  tugged  amain, 

Ere  he  wrenched  out  the  steel. 
"  And  see/'  he  cried,  "  the  welcome, 

Fair  guests,  that  waits  you  here !  395 

What  noble  Lucumo  comes  next 

To  taste  our  Eoman  cheer  ?  " 

XLVIII. 

But  at  his  haughty  challenge 

A  sullen  murmur  ran, 
Mingled  of  wrath,  and  shame,  and  dread,         400 

Along  that  glittering  van. 
There  lacked  not  men  of  prowess, 

Xor  men  of  lordly  race  ; 
For  all  Etruria's  noblest 

Were  round  the  fatal  place.  405 

XLIX. 

But  all  Etruria's  noblest 
Felt  their  hearts  sink  to  see 


HOEATIUS.  57 

On  the  earth  the  bloody  corpses, 

In  the  path  the  dauntless  Three : 
And,  from  the  ghastly  entrance  410 

Where  those  bold  Eomans  stood, 
All  shrank,  like  boys  who  unaware, 
Ranging  the  woods  to  start  a  hare, 
Come  to  the  mouth  of  the  dark  lair 
Where,  growling  low,  a  fierce  old  bear  415 

Lies  amidst  bones  and  blood. 

L. 

Was  none  who  would  be  foremost 

To  lead  such  dire  attack  : 
But  those  behind  cried  "  Forward  ! " 

And  those  before  cried  "  Back  ! "  420 

And  backward  now  and  forward 

Wavers  the  deep  array ; 
And  on  the  tossing  sea  of  steel, 

To  and  fro  the  standards  reel ; 
And  the  victorious  trumpet-peal  425 

Dies  fitfully  away. 

LI. 

Yet  one  man  for  one  moment 

Stood  out  before  the  crowd ; 
Well  known  was  he  to  all  the  Three, 

And  they  gave  him  greeting  loud,  430 

"  Now  welcome,  welcome,  Sextus  ! 

Now  welcome  to  thy  home  ! 
Why  dost  thou  stay,  and  turn  away  ? 

Here  lies  the  road  to  Rome." 

LII. 

Thrice  looked  he  at  the  city ;  435 

Thrice  looked  he  at  the  dead ; 


58  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT    ROME. 

And  thrice  came  on  in  fury, 

And  thrice  turned  back  in  dread : 

And,  white  with  fear  and  hatred, 

Scowled  at  the  narrow  way  440 

Where,  wallowing  in  a  pool  of  blood, 
The  bravest  Tuscans  lay. 

LIII. 

But  meanwhile  axe  and  lever 

Have  manfully  been  plied ; 
And  now  the  bridge  hangs  tottering  445 

Above  the  boiling  tide. 
"  Come  back,  come  back,  Horatius  !  " 

Loud  cried  the  Fathers  all. 
"  Back,  Lartius  !  back,  Herminius  ! 

Back,  ere  the  ruin  fall !  "  450 

LIV. 

Back  darted  Spurius  Lartius ; 

Herminius  darted  back : 
And,  as  they  passed,  beneath  their  feet 

They  felt  the  timbers  crack. 
But  when  they  turned  their  faces,  455 

And  on  the  farther  shore 
Saw  brave  Horatius  stand  alone, 

They  would  have  crossed  once  more. 

LV. 

But  with  a  crash  like  thunder 

Fell  every  loosened  beam,  460 

And,  like  a  dam,  the  mighty  wreck 

Lay  right  athwart  the  stream  : 
And  a  long  shout  of  triumph 

Rose  from  the  walls  of  Rome, 
As  to  the  highest  turret-tops  465 

Was  splashed  the  yellow  foam. 


HORATIUS.  59 


LVI. 

And,  like  a  horse  unbroken 

When  first  he  feels  the  rein. 
The  furious  river  struggled  hard, 

And  tossed  his  tawny  mane,  470 

And  burst  the  curb,  and  bounded, 

Rejoicing  to  be  free, 
And  whirling  down,  in  fierce  career, 
Battlement,  and  plank,  and  pier, 

Rushed  headlong  to  the  sea.  475 

LVII. 

Alone  stood  brave  Horatius, 

But  constant  still  in  mind ; 
Thrice  thirty  thousand  foes  before, 

And  the  broad  flood  behind. 
"  Down  with  him  !  "  cried  false  Sextus,  480 

With  a  smile  on  his  pale  face. 
"Now  yield  thee/3  cried  Lars  Porsena, 

"  Now  yield  thee  to  our  grace." 

LVIII. 

Round  turned  he,  as  not  deigning 

Those  craven  ranks  to  see  ;  485 

Nought  spake  he  to  Lars  Porsena, 

To  Sextus  nought  spake  he; 
But  he  saw  on  Palatini! s  ^ 

The  white  porch  of  his  home  ; 
And  he  spake  to  the  noble  river  490 

That  rolls  by  the  towers  of  Rome. 

LTX. 

"  Oh,  Tiber  !  father  Tiber 59 ! 
To  whom  the  Romans  pray. 


60  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT    ROME. 

A  Roman's  life,  a  Roman's  arms, 

Take  thou  in  charge  this  day  ! "  495 

So  he  spake,  and  speaking  sheathed 

The  good  sword  by  his  side, 
And  with  his  harness  on  his  back, 

Plunged  headlong  in  the  tide. 

LX. 

No  sound  of  joy  or  sorrow  500 

Was  heard  from  either  bank ; 
But  friends  and  foes  in  dumb  surprise, 
With  parted  lips  and  straining  eyes, 

Stood  gazing  where  he  sank  ; 
And  when  above  the  surges  505 

They  saw  his  crest  appear, 
All  Rome  sent  forth  a  rapturous  cry, 
And  even  the  ranks  of  Tuscany 

Could  scarce  forbear  to  cheer. 

LXI. 

But  fiercely  ran  the  current,  510 

Swollen  high  by  months  of  rain : 
And  fast  his  blood  was  flowing ; 

And  he  was  sore  in  pain, 
And  heavy  with  his  armour, 

And  spent  with  changing  blows  :  515 

And  oft  they  thought  him  sinking, 

But  still  again  he  rose. 

LXII. 

Never,  I  ween,  did  swimmer, 

In  such  an  evil  case, 
Struggle  through  such  a  raging  flood  520 

Safe  .to  the  landing  place  : 


HORATIUS.  61 

But  his  limbs  were  borne  up  bravely 

By  the  brave  heart  within, 
And  our  good  father  Tiber 

Bore  bravely  up  his  chin.  525 

LXIII. 

"  Curse  on  him  !  "  quoth  false  Sextus  ; 

"  Will  not  the  villain  drown  ? 
But  for  this  stay,  ere  close  of  day 

We  should  have  sacked  the  town  ! " 
"  Heaven  help  him  !  "  quoth  Lars  Porsena,      530 

"  And  bring  him  safe  to  shore ; 
For  such  a  gallant  feat  of  arms 

Was  never  seen  before." 

LXIV. 

And  now  he  feels  the  bottom  ; 

Xow  on  dry  earth  he  stands  ;  535 

Kow  round  him  throng  the  Fathers 

To  press  his  gory  hands  ; 
And  now,  with  shouts  and  clapping, 

And  noise  of  weeping  loud, 
He  enters  through  the  Kiver-Gate,60  540 

Borne  by  the  joyous  crowd. 

LXV. 

They  gave  him  of  the  corn-land,61 

That  was  of  public  right, 
As  much  as  two  strong  oxen 

Could  plough  from  morn  till  night62;  545 

And  they  made  a  molten  image, 

And  set  it  up  on  high, 
And  there  it  stands  unto  this  day 

To  witness  if  I  lie. 


62  LAYS    OF   ANCIENT   ROME. 


LXVI. 

It  stands  in  the  Comitium,63  550 

Plain  for  all  folk  to  see ; 
Horatius  in  his  harness, 

Halting  upon  one  knee : 
And  underneath  is  written, 

In  letters  all  of  gold,  555 

How  valiantly  he  kept  the  bridge 

In  the  brave  days  of  old. 

LXVII. 

And  still  his  name  sounds  stirring 

Unto  the  men  of  Rome, 
As  the  trumpet-blast  that  cries  to  them  560 

To  charge  the  Volscian 64  home  ; 
And  wives  still  pray  to  Juno  m 

For  boys  with  hearts  as  bold 
As  his  who  kept  the  bridge  so  well 

In  the  brave  days  of  old.  565 

LXVIII. 

And  in  the  nights  of  winter, 

When  the  cold  north  winds  blow, 
And  the  long  howling  of  the  wolves 

Is  heard  amidst  the  snow  ; 
When  round  the  lonely  cottage  570 

Roars  loud  the  tempest's  din, 
And  the  good  logs  of  Algidus  ^ 

Roar  louder  yet  within ; 

LXIX. 

When  the  oldest  cask  is  opened, 

And  the  largest  lamp  is  lit;  575 


HOEATIUS  63 

When  the  chestnuts  glow  in  the  embers, 

And  the  kid  turns  on  the  spit ; 
When  young  and  old  in  circle 

Around  the  firebrands  close ; 
When  the  girls  are  weaving  baskets,  580 

And  the  lads  are  shaping  bows ; 

LXX. 

When  the  goodman  mends  his  armour, 

And  trims  his  helmet's  plume  ; 
When  the  goodwife's  shuttle  merrily 

Goes  flashing  through  the  loom  ;  585 

With  weeping  and  with  laughter 

Still  is  the  story  told, 
How  well  Horatius  kept  the  bridge 

In  the  brave  clays  of  old. 


THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  LAKE  REGILLUS. 


The  following  poem  is  supposed  to  have  been  produced 
about  ninety  years  after  the  lay  of  Horatius.  Some  persons 
mentioned  in  the  lay  of  Horatius  make  their  appearance 
again,  and  some  appellations  and  epithets  used  in  the  lay  of 
Horatius  have  been  purposely  repeated :  for,  in  an  age  of 
ballad  poetry,  it  scarcely  ever  fails  to  happen,  that  certain 
phrases  come  to  be  appropriated  to  certain  men  and  things, 
and  are  regularly  applied  to  those  men  and  things  by  every 
minstrel.     Thus  we  find,  both  in  the  Homeric  poems  and  in 

Hesiod,  JSlt)  'Hpa/cA^et'?;,  7r€pLK\vro<;  'A/xc^iyir^ets,  StaKTopos  'Apya- 
(frovTrjs,  €7TTa7rvAos  @t/^,  'EAeV^?  eveK  rjvKO/uiOLO.  Thus,  too,  in 
our  own  national  songs,  Douglas  is  almost  always  the 
doughty  Douglas:  England  is  merry  England:  all  the  gold 
is  red  ;  and  all  the  ladies  are  gay. 

The  principal  distinction  between  the  lay  of  Horatius  and 
the  lay  of  the  Lake  Regillus  is  that  the  former  is  meant  to 
be  purely  Roman,  while  the  latter,  though  national  in  its 
general  spirit,  has  a  slight  tincture  of  Greek  learning  and 
of  Greek  superstition.  The  story  of  the  Tar  quins,  as  it  has 
come  down  to  us,  appears  to  have  been  compiled  from  the 
works  of  several  popular  poets ;  and  one,  at  least,  of  those 
poets  appears  to  have  visited  the  Greek  colonies  in  Italy,  if 
not  Greece  itself,  and  to  have  had  some  acquaintance  with 
the  works  of  Homer  and  Herodotus.  Many  of  the  most 
striking  adventures  of  the  house  of  Tarquin,  before  Lucretia 
makes  her  appearance,  have  a  Greek  character.  The  Tar- 
quins  themselves  are  represented  as  Corinthian  nobles  of 


66  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT    ROME. 

the  great  house  of  the  Bacchiadse,  driven  from  their  country 
by  the  tyranny  of  that  Cypselus,  the  tale  of  whose  strange 
escape  Herodotus  has  related  with  incomparable  simplicity 
and  liveliness.*  Livy  and  Dionysius  tell  us  that,  when  Tar- 
quin  the  Proud  was  asked  what  was  the  best  mode  of  gov- 
erning a  conquered  city,  he  replied  only  by  beating  down 
with  his  staff  all  the  tallest  poppies  in  his  garden. t  This  is 
exactly  what  Herodotus,  in  the  passage  to  which  reference 
has  already  been  made,  relates  of  the  counsel  given  to  Peri- 
ander,  the  son  of  Cypselus.  The  stratagem  by  which  the 
town  of  Gabii  is  brought  under  the  power  of  the  Tarquins 
is,  again,  obviously  copied  from  Herodotus. J  The  embassy 
of  the  young  Tarquins  to  the  oracle  at  Delphi  is  just  such  a 
story  as  would  be  tolcl  by  a  poet  whose  head  was  full  of  the 
Greek  mythology ;  and  the  ambiguous  answer  returned  by 
Apollo  is  in  the  exact  style  of  the  prophecies  which,  accord- 
ing to  Herodotus,  lured  Croesus  to  destruction.  Then  the 
character  of  the  narrative  changes.  Prom  the  first  mention 
of  Lucretia  to  the  retreat  of  Porsena  nothing  seems  to  be 
borrowed  from  foreign  sources.  The  villany  of  Sextus,  the 
suicide  of  his  victim,  the  revolution,  the  death  of  the  sons 
of  Brutus,  the  defence  of  the  bridge,  Mucins  burning  his 
hand,  Cloelia  swimming  through  Tiber,  seem  to  be  all  strictly 
Roman.  But  when  we  have  done  with  the  Tuscan  war,  and 
enter  upon  the  war  with  the  Latines,  we  are  again  struck  by 
the  Greek  air  of  the  story.  The  Battle  of  the  Lake  Begillus 
is  in  all  respects  a  Homeric  battle,  except  that  the  comba- 
tants ride  astride  on  their  horses,  instead  of  driving  chariots. 
The  mass  of  fighting  men  is  hardly  mentioned.  The  lead- 
ers single  each  other  out,  and  engage  hand  to  hand.  The 
great  object  of  the  warriors  on  both  sides  is,  as  in  the  Iliad, 
to  obtain  possession  of  the  spoils  and  bodies  of  the  slain ; 

*  Herodotus,  v.  92.     Livy,  i.  34.     Dionysius,  iii.  46. 
f  Livy,  i.  54.     Dionysius,  iv.  5Q. 
I  Herodotus,  iii.  154.     Livy,  i.  53. 


BATTLE    OF    THE    LAKE    REGILLCS.  67 

and  several  circumstances  are  related  which  forcibly  remind 
us  of  the  great  slaughter  round  the  corpses  of  Sarpedon  and 
Patroclus. 

But  there  is  one  circumstance  which  deserves  especial 
notice.  Both  the  war  of  Troy  and  the  war  of  Regillus 
were  caused  by  the  licentious  passions  of  young  princes, 
who  were  therefore  peculiarly  bound  not  to  be  sparing 
of  their  own  persons  in  the  day  of  battle.  Xow  the  con- 
duct of  Sextus  at  Regillus,  as  described  by  Livy,  so  exactly 
resembles  that  of  Paris,  as  described  at  the  beginning  of 
the  third  book  of  the  Iliad,  that  it  is  difficult  to  believe  the 
resemblance  accidental.  Paris  appears  before  the  Trojan 
ranks,  defying  the  bravest  Greek  to  encounter  him : 

Tpcocrh  fikv  irpofxaxi-^v  '  A\e%avdpos  deoeidrjs, 
,  .  .  '  Apyeicov  irpoKaKl^ero  irdvras  apLdTovs, 
avrifiiov  (jLaxe&acrdcu  ev  alvrj  drjLorrJTL. 

Livy  introduces  Sextus  in  a  similar  manner:  "Ferocem 
juvenem  Tarquinium,  ostentantem  se  in  prima  exsulum  acie." 
Menelaus  rushes  to  meet  Paris.  A  Roman  noble,  eager  for 
vengeance,  spurs  his  horse  towards  Sextus.  Both  the  guilty 
princes  are  instantly  terror-stricken  : 

Tbu  8    cbs  o&i>  iv6r)(T€v  AXe^avdpos  Oeoeidrjs 

kv  TrpofxdxoKTL  (fmvevra,  KaTeTrXrjyr]  (pL\ov  9jrop  ' 

Sl\(/  5'  erdpcov  els  eQvos  ex^i"6ro  KVP    dXeelvcjv. 

"  Tarquinius,"  says  Livy,  "  retro  in  agmen  suorum  infenso 
cessit  hosti."  If  this  be  a  fortuitous  coincidence,  it  is  one 
of  the  most  extraordinary  in  literature. 

In  the  following  poem,  therefore,  images  and  incidents 
have  been  borrowed,  not  merely  without  scruple,  but  on 
principle,  from  the  incomparable  battle-pieces  of  Homer. 

The  popular  belief  at  Borne,  from  an  early  period, 
seems  to  have  been  that  the  event  of  the  great  day  of 
Regillus  was  decided  by  supernatural  agency.  Castor  and 
Pollux,  it  was  said,  had  fought,  armed  and  mounted,  at  the 


68  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT    ROME. 

head  of  the  legions  of  the  commonwealth,  and  had  after- 
wards carried  the  news  of  the  victory  with  incredible  speed 
to  the  city.  The  well  in  the  Forum  at  which  they  had 
alighted  was  pointed  out.  Near  the  well  rose  their  ancient 
temple.  A  great  festival  was  kept  to  their  honour  on  the 
Ides  of  Quintilis,  supposed  to  be  the  anniversary  of  the 
battle ;  and  on  that  day  sumptuous  sacrifices  were  offered 
to  them  at  the  public  charge.  One  spot  on  the  margin  of 
Lake  Regillus  was  regarded  during  many  ages  with  super- 
stitious awe.  A  mark,  resembling  in  shape  a  horse's  hoof, 
was  discernible  in  the  volcanic  rock ;  and  this  mark  was 
believed  to  have  been  made  by  one  of  the  celestial  chargers. 
How  the  legend  originated  cannot  now  be  ascertained: 
but  we  may  easily  imagine  several  ways  in  which  it  might 
have  originated ;  nor  is  it  at  all  necessary  to  suppose,  with 
Julius  Frontinus,  that  two  young  men  were  dressed  up  by 
the  Dictator  to  personate  the  sons  of  Leda.  It  is  prob- 
able that  Livy  is  correct  when  he  says  that  the  Eoman 
general,  in  the  hour  of  peril,  vowed  a  temple  to  Castor.  If 
so,  nothing  could  be  more  natural  than  that  the  multitude 
should  ascribe  the  victory  to  the  favour  of  the  Twin  Gods. 
When  such  was  the  prevailing  sentiment,  any  man  who 
chose  to  declare  that,  in  the  midst  of  the  confusion  and 
slaughter,  he  had  seen  two  godlike  forms  on  white  horses 
scattering  the  Latines,  would  find  ready  credence.  We 
know,  indeed,  that,  in  modern  times,  a  very  similar  story 
actually  found  credence  among  a  people  much  more  civil- 
ised than  the  Romans  of  the  fifth  century  before  Christ. 
A  chaplain  of  Cortes,  writing  about  thirty  years  after  the 
conquest  of  Mexico,  in  an  age  of  printing  presses,  libraries, 
universities,  scholars,  logicians,  jurists,  and  statesmen,  had 
the  face  to  assert  that,  in  one  engagement  against  the 
Indians,  Saint  James  had  appeared  on  a  grey  horse  at  the 
head  of  the  Castilian  adventurers.  Many  of  those  adven- 
turers were  living  when  this  lie  was  printed.     One  of  them, 


BATTLE    OF    THE   LAKE    KEGILLUS.  69 

honest  Bernal  Diaz,  wrote  an  account  of  the  expedition. 
He  had  the  evidence  of  his  own  senses  against  the  legend ; 
but  he  seems  to  have  distrusted  even  the  evidence  of  his 
own  senses.  He  says  that  he  was  in  the  battle,  and  that  he 
saw  a  grey  horse  with  a  man  on  his  back,  but  that  the  man 
was,  to  his  thinking,  Francesco  de  Morla,  and  not  the  ever- 
blessed  apostle  Saint  James.  "  Nevertheless,"  Bernal  adds, 
"  it  may  be  that  the  person  on  the  grey  horse  was  the  glori- 
ous apostle  Saint  James,  and  that  I,  sinner  that  I  am,  was 
unworthy  to  see  him."  The  Romans  of  the  age  of  Cincin- 
natus  were  probably  quite  as  credulous  as  the  Spanish  sub- 
jects of  Charles  the  Fifth.  It  is  therefore  conceivable  that 
the  appearance  of  Castor  and  Pollux  may  have  become  an 
article  of  faith  before  the  generation  which  had  fought  at 
Regillus  had  passed  away.  Nor  could  anything  be  more 
natural  than  that  the  poets  of  the  next  age  should  embellish 
this  story,  and  make  the  celestial  horsemen  bear  the  tidings 
of  victory  to  Rome. 

Many  years  after  the  temple  of  the  Twin  Gods  had  been 
built  in  the  Forum,  an  important  addition  was  made  to  the 
ceremonial  by  which  the  state  annually  testified  its  gratitude 
for  their  protection.  Quintus  Fabins  and  Publius  Deems 
were  elected  Censors  at  a  momentous  crisis.  It  had  become 
absolutely  necessary  that  the  classification  of  the  citizens 
should  be  revised.  On  that  classification  depended  the  dis- 
tribution of  political  power.  Party-spirit  ran  high;  and 
the  republic  seemed  to  be  in  danger  of  falling  under  the 
dominion  either  of  a  narrow  oligarchy  or  of  an  ignorant 
and  headstrong  rabble.  Under  such  circumstances,  the 
most  illustrious  patrician  and  the  most  illustrious  ple- 
beian of  the  age  were  intrusted  with  the  office  of  arbitrat- 
ing between  the  angry  factions ;  and  they  performed  their 
arduous  task  to  the  satisfaction  of  all  honest  and  reasonable 
men. 

One  of  their  reforms  was  a  remodelling  of  the  equestrian 


70  LAYS    OF    AXCIEXT    ROME. 

order ;  and,  having  effected  this  reform,  they  determined  to 
give  to  their  work  a  sanction  derived  from  religion.  In  the 
chivalrous  societies  of  modern  times,  societies  which  have 
much  more  than  may  at  first  sight  appear  in  common  with 
the  equestrian  order  of  Rome,  it  has  been  usual  to  invoke 
the  special  protection  of  some  Saint,  and  to  observe  his  day 
with  peculiar  solemnity.  Thus  the  Companions  of  the  Garter 
wear  the  image  of  Saint  George  depending  from  their  col- 
lars, and  meet,  on  great  occasions,  in  Saint  George's  Chapel. 
Thus,  when  Lewis  the  Fourteenth  instituted  a  new  order  of 
chivalry  for  the  rewarding  of  military  merit,  he  commended 
it  to  the  favour  of  his  own  glorified  ancestor  and  patron, 
and  decreed  that  all  the  members  of  the  fraternity  should 
meet  at  the  royal  palace  on  the  feast  of  Saint  Lewis,  should 
attend  the  king  to  chapel,  should  hear  mass,  and  should  sub- 
sequently hold  their  great  annual  assembly.  There  is  a  con- 
siderable resemblance  between  this  rule  of  the  order  of  Saint 
Lewis  and  the  rule  which  Fabius  and  Decius  made  respect- 
ing the  Roman  knights.  It  was  ordained  that  a  grand  mus- 
ter and  inspection  of  the  equestrian  body  should  be  part  of 
the  ceremonial  performed,  on  the  anniversary  of  the  battle 
of  Eegillus,  in  honour  of  Castor  and  Pollux,  the  two  eques- 
trian Gods.  All  the  knights,  clad  in  purple  and  crowned 
with  olive,  were  to  meet  at  a  temple  of  Mars  in  the  suburbs. 
Thence  they  were  to  ride  in  state  to  the  Forum,  where  the 
temple  of  the  Twins  stood.  This  pageant  was,  during  sev- 
eral centuries,  considered  as  one  of  the  most  splendid  sights 
of  Home.  In  the  time  of  Dionysius  the  cavalcade  some- 
times consisted  of  five  thousand  horsemen,  all  persons  of 
fair  repute  and  easy  fortune. # 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Censors  who  instituted 


*See  Livy,  ix.  46.  Val.  Max.  ii.  2.  Aurel.  Yict.  De  Viris  Ilhistribus, 
32.  Dionysius,  vi.  13.  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  xv.  5.  See  also  the  singularly 
ingenious  chapter  in  Niebuhr's  posthumous  volume,  Die  Censur  des  Q. 
Fabius  und  P.  Decius. 


BATTLE    OF    THE    LAKE    REGILLUS.  71 

this  august  ceremony  acted  in  concert  with  the  Pontiffs  to 
whom,  by  the  constitution  of  Eome,  the  superintendence  of 
the  public  worship  belonged;  and  it  is  probable  that  those 
high  religious  functionaries  were,  as  usual,  fortunate  enough 
to  find  in  their  books  or  traditions  some  warrant  for  the 
innovation. 

The  following  poem  is  supposed  to  have  been  made  for 
this  great  occasion.  Songs,  we  know,  were  chanted  at  the 
religious  festivals  of  Eome  from  an  early  period;  indeed 
from  so  early  a  period,  that  some  of  the  sacred  verses  were 
popularly  ascribed  to  Xuma,  and  were  utterly  unintelligible 
in  the  age  of  Augustus.  In  the  Second  Punic  War  a  great 
feast  was  held  in  honour  of  Juno,  and  a  song  was  sung  in 
her  praise.  This  song  was  extant  when  Livy  wrote ;  and, 
though  exceedingly  rugged  and  uncouth,  seemed  to  him 
not  wholly  destitute  of  merit.*  A  song,  as  we  learn  from 
Horace,!  ^vas  part  of  the  established  ritual  at  the  great 
Secular  Jubilee.  It  is  therefore  likely  that  the  Censors 
and  Pontiffs,  when  they  had  resolved  to  add  a  grand  pro- 
cession of  knights  to  the  other  solemnities  annually  per- 
formed on  the  Ides  of  Quintilis,  would  call  in  the  aid  of 
a  poet.  Such  a  poet  would  naturally  take  for  his  subject 
the  battle  of  Regillus,  the  appearance  of  the  Twin  Gods, 
and  the  institution  of  their  festival.  He  would  find  abun- 
dant materials  in  the  ballads  of  his  predecessors ;  and  he 
would  make  free  use  of  the  scanty  stock  of  Greek  learning 
which  he  had  himself  acquired.  He  would  probably  intro- 
duce some  wise  and  holy  Pontiff  enjoining  the  magnificent 
ceremonial,  which,  after  a  long  interval,  had  at  length  been 
adopted.  If  the  poem  succeeded,  many  persons  would  com- 
mit it  to  memory.  Parts  of  it  would  be  sung  to  the  pipe 
at  banquets.  It  would  be  peculiarly  interesting  to  the  great 
Posthumian  House,  which  numbered  among  its  many  images 
that  of  the  Dictator  Aulus.  the  hero  of  Regillus.  The  orator 
*Livy,  xxvii.  37.  t  Hor,  Carmen  Seculore. 


72  LAYS    OF    ANCIEXT   ROME. 

who,  in  the  following  generation,  pronounced  the  funeral 
panegyric  over  the  remains  of  Lucius  Posthumius  Megellus, 
thrice  Consul,  would  borrow  largely  from  the  lay ;  and  thus 
some  passages,  much  disfigured,  would  probably  find  their 
way  into  the  chronicles  which  were  afterwards- in  the  hands 
of  Dionysius  and  Livy. 

Antiquaries  differ  widely  as  to  the  situation  of  the  field 
of  battle.  The  opinion  of  those  who  suppose  that  the 
armies  met  near  Cornuf elle,  between  Frascati  and  the  Monte 
Porzio,  is  at  least  plausible,  and  has  been  followed  in  the 
poem. 

As  to  the  details  of  the  battle,  it  has  not  been  thought 
desirable  to  adhere  minutely  to  the  accounts  which  have 
come  down  to  us.  Those  accounts,  indeed,  differ  widely 
from  each  other,  and,  in  all  probability,  differ  as  widely 
from  the  ancient  poem  from  which  they  were  originally 
derived. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  point  out  the  obvious  imitations  of 
the  Iliad,  which  have  been  purposely  introduced. 


THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  LAKE  REGILLUS. 

A  LAY  SUNG  AT  THE  FEAST  OF  CASTOR  AND  POLLUX,  ON  THE  IDES 
OF  QUINTILIS,  IN  THE  YEAR  OF  THE  CITY  CCCCLI. 


I. 

Ho,  trumpets,  sound  a  war-note  ! 

Ho,  lictors,1  clear  the  way ! 
The  Knights 2  will  ride,  in  all  their  pride, 

Along  the  streets  to-day. 
To-day  the  doors  and  windows  5 

Are  hung  with  garlands  all, 
From  Castor3  in  the  Forum, 

To  Mars  4  without  the  wall. 
Each  Knight  is  robed  in  purple,5 

With  olive  each  is  crowned ;  10 

A  gallant  war-horse  under  each 

Paws  haughtily  the  ground. 
While  flows  the  Yellow  Biver,6 

While  stands  the  Sacred  Hill/ 
The  proud  Ides  of  Quintilis  8  15 

Shall  have  such  honour  still. 
Gay  are  the  Martian  Kalends  9 : 

December's  Nones  10  are  gay  : 
But  the  proud  Ides,  when  the  squadron  rides, 

Shall  be  Eome's  whitest  day  :  20 

11. 

Unto  the  Great  Twin  Brethren  n 
We  keep  this  solemn  feast. 
73 


74  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT    EOME. 

Swift,  swift,  the  Great  Twin  Brethren 

Came  spurring  from  the  east. 
They  came  o'er  wild  Parthenius  12  25 

Tossing  in  waves  of  pine, 
O'er  Cirrha's  13  dome,  o'er  Adria's  foam, 

O'er  purple  Apennine, 
From  where  with  flutes  14  and  dances 

Their  ancient  mansion  rings,  30 

In  lordly  Lacedaemon, 

The  City  of  two  kings,15 
To  where,  by  Lake  Regillus,16 

Under  the  Porcian  height, 
All  in  the  lands  of  Tusculum,17  35 

Was  fought  the  glorious  fight. 


in. 

Now  on  the  place  of  slaughter 

Are  cots  and  sheepfolds  seen, 
And  rows  of  vines,  and  fields  of  wheat, 

And  apple-orchards  green  ;  40 

The  swine  crush  the  big  acorns 

That  fall  from  Corne's  18  oaks. 
Upon  the  turf  by  the  Pair  Fount 

The  reaper's  pottage  smokes. 
The  fisher  baits  his  angle  ;  45 

The  hunter  twangs  his  bow  ; 
Little  they  think  on  those  strong  limbs 

That  moulder  deep  below. 
Little  they  think  how  sternly 

That  day  the  trumpets  pealed ;  50 

How  in  the  slippery  swamp  of  blood 

Warrior  and  war-horse  reeled ; 
How  wolves  came  with  fierce  gallop, 

And  crows  on  eager  wings, 


BATTLE    OF    THE    LAKE    KEGILLUS.  fb 

To  tear  the  flesli  of  captains,  55 

And  peck  the  eyes  of  kings  ; 
How  thick  the  dead  lay  scattered 

Under  the  Porcian  height ; 
How  through  the  gates  of  Tusculum 

Eaved  the  wild  stream  of  flight ;  60 

And  how  the  Lake  Regillus 

Bubbled  with  crimson  foam, 
What  time  the  Thirty  Cities  19 

Came  forth  to  war  with  Eome. 

IV. 

But,  Roman,  when  thou  standest  65 

Upon  that  holy  ground, 
Look  thou  with  heed  on  the  dark  rock 

That  girds  the  dark  lake  round, 
So  shalt  thou  see  a  hoof -mark 

Stamped  deep  into  the  flint :  70 

It  was  no  hoof  of  mortal  steed 

That  made  so  strange  a  dint: 
There  to  the  Great  Twin  Brethren 

Vow  thou  thy  vows,  and  pray 
That  they,  in  tempest  and  in  fight,  75 

Will  keep  thy  head  alway. 


Since  last  the  Great  Twin  Brethren 

Of  mortal  eyes  were  seen, 
Have  years  gone  by  an  hundred 

And  fourscore  and  thirteen.20  80 

That  summer  a  Yirginius 

Wras  Consul  first  in  place  21; 
The  second  was  stout  Aulus, 

Of  the  Posthumian  race. 


76  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT    ROME. 

The  Herald  of  the  Latines  85 

From  Gabii 22  came  in  state  : 
The  Herald  of  the  Latines 

Passed  through  Eome's  Eastern  Gate 23 : 
The  Herald  of  the  Latines 

Did  in  our  Forum  stand  ;  90 

And  there  he  did  his  office, 

A  sceptre  in  his  hand. 

VI. 

"  Hear,  Senators  and  people 

Of  the  good  town  of  Rome, 
The  Thirty  Cities  charge  you  95 

To  bring  the  Tarquins 24  home : 
And  if  ye  still  be  stubborn, 

To  work  the  Tarquins  wrong, 
The  Thirty  Cities  warn  you, 

Look  that  your  w^alls  be  strong."  100 

VII. 

Then  spake  the  Consul  Aulus, 

He  spake  a  bitter  jest : 
"Once  the  jay  sent  a  message 

Unto  the  eagle's  nest :  — 
Now  yield  thou  up  thine  eyrie  105 

Unto  the  carrion-kite, 
Or  come  forth  valiantly,  and  face 

The  jays  in  deadly  fight. — 
Forth  looked  in  wrath  the  eagle ; 

And  carrion-kite  and  jay,  110 

Soon  as  they  saw  his  beak  and  claw, 

Fled  screaming  far  away." 

VIII. 

The  Herald  of  the  Latines 
Hath  hied  him  back  in  state  ; 


BATTLE    OF    THE    LAKE    REGILLUS.  77 

The  Fathers  of  the  City  115 

Are  met  in  high  debate. 
Then  spake  the  elder  Consul, 

An  ancient  man  and  wise  : 
"  Now  hearken,  Conscript  Fathers,25 

To  that  which  I  advise.  120 

In  seasons  of  great  peril 

?Tis  good  that  one  bear  sway ; 
Then  choose  we  a  Dictator,26 

Whom  all  men  shall  obey. 
Camerium 27  knows  how  deeply  125 

The  sword  of  Aulus  bites, 
And  all  our  city  calls  him 

The  man  of  seventy  fights. 
Then  let  him  be  Dictator 

For  six  months  and  no  more ;  130 

And  have  a  Master  of  the  Knights, 

And  axes  twenty-four.28 


IX. 

So  Aulus  was  Dictator, 

The  man  of  seventy  fights  ; 
He  made  iEbutius  Elva  135 

His  Master  of  the  Knights.29 
On  the  third  morn  thereafter, 

At  dawning  of  the  day, 
Did  Aulus  and  JEbutius 

Set  forth  with  their  array.  140 

Sempronius  Atratinus 

Was  left  in  charge  at  home 
With  boys,  and  with  grey-headed  men, 

To  keep  the  walls  of  Eome. 
Hard  by  the  Lake  Regillus  145 

Our  camp  was  pitched  at  night : 


78  LAYS    OF    ANCIEKT    ROME. 

Eastward  a  mile  the  Latines  lay. 

Under  the  Porcian  height. 
Far  over  hill  and  valley 

Their  mighty  host  was  spread ;  150 

And  with  their  thousand  watch-fires 

The  midnight  sky  was  red. 


Up  rose  the  golden  morning 

Over  the  Porcian  height, 
The  proud  Ides  of  Quintilis  155 

Marked  evermore  with  white. 
Not  without  secret  trouble 

Our  bravest  saw  the  foes ; 
For,  girt  by  threescore  thousand  spears, 

The  thirty  standards  rose.  160 

Prom  every  warlike  city 

That  boasts  the  Latian  name, 
Foredoomed  to  dogs  and  vultures, 

That  gallant  army  came ; 
From  Setia's30  purple  vineyards,  165 

From  Norba's  31  ancient  wall, 
From  the  white  streets  of  Tusculum, 

The  proudest  town  of  all ; 
From  where  the  Witch's  Fortress 32 

Overhangs  the  dark-blue  seas  ;  170 

From  the  still,  glassy  lake  that  sleeps 

Beneath  Aricia's  trees33  — 
Those  trees  in  whose  dim  shadow 

The  ghastly  priest  doth  reign, 
The  priest  who  slew  the  slayer,  175 

And  shall  himself  be  slain  ; 
From  the  drear  banks  of  Ufens,34 

Where  flights  of  marsh-fowl  play, 


BATTLE    OF    THE   LAKE    REGILLUS.  79 

And  buffaloes  lie  wallowing 

Through  the  hot  summer's  day ;  180 

From  the  gigantic  watch-towers, 

No  work  of  earthly  men. 
Whence  Cora's3,5  sentinels  o'erlook 

The  never-ending  fen ; 
From  the  Laurentian36  jungle,  185 

The  wild  hog's  reedy  home ; 
From  the  green  steeps  whence  Anio  m  leaps 

In  floods  of  snow-white  foam. 

XI. 

Aricia,  Cora,  Xorba, 

Velitrse,38  with  the  might  190 

Of  Setia  and  of  Tusculum, 

Were  marshalled  on  the  right : 
The  leader  was  Mamilius,39 

Prince  of  the  Latian  name ; 
Upon  his  head  a  helmet  195 

Of  red  gold  shone  like  flame : 
High  on  a  gallant  charger 

Of  dark-grey  hue  he  rode ; 
Over  his  gilded  armour 

A  vest  of  purple  flowed,  200 

Woven  in  the  land  of  sunrise 

By  Syria's  dark-browed  daughters,40 
And  by  the  sails  of  Carthage 41  brought 

Far  o'er  the  southern  waters. 

XII. 

Lavinium 42  and  Laurentum  205 

Had  on  the  left  their  post, 
With  all  the  banners  of  the  marsh, 

And  banners  of  the  coast. 


80  LAYS    OF    ANCIEKT    ROME. 

Their  leader  was  false  Sextus,48 

That  wrought  the  deed  of  shame :  210 

With  restless  pace  and  haggard  face 

To  his  last  field  he  came. 
]\Ien  said  he  saw  strange  visions 

Which  none  beside  might  see, 
And  that  strange  sounds  were  in  his  ears  215 

Which  none  might  hear  but  he. 
A  woman  fair  and  stately, 

But  pale  as  are  the  dead, 
Oft  through  the  watches  of  the  night 

Sat  spinning  by  his  bed.  220 

And  as  she  plied  the  distaff, 

In  a  sweet  voice  and  low, 
She  sang  of  great  old  houses, 

And  fights  fought  long  ago. 
So  spun  she,  and  so  sang  she,  225 

Until  the  east  was  grey, 
Then  pointed  to  her  bleeding  breast, 

And  shrieked,  and  fled  away. 


XIII. 

But  in  the  centre  thickest 

Were  ranged  the  shields  of  foes,  230 

And  from  the  centre  loudest 

The  cry  of  battle  rose. 
There  Tiber  **  marched  and  Pedum  45 

Beneath  proud  Tarquin's  rule, 
And  Ferentinum  ^  of  the  rock,  235 

And  Gabii  of  the  pool. 
There  rode  the  Yolscian  succours  47 : 

There,  in  a  dark  stern  ring, 
The  Eoman  exiles  gathered  close 

Around  the  ancient  king.48  240 


BATTLE    OF    THE    LAKE    REGILLUS.  81 

Though  white  as  Mount  Soracte,49 

When  winter  nights  are  long, 
His  beard  flowed  down  o'er  mail  and  belt, 

His  heart  and  hand  were  strong: 
Under  his  hoary  eyebrows  245 

Still  flashed  forth  quenchless  rage, 
And,  if  the  lance  shook  in  his  gripe, 

'Twas  more  with  hate  than  age. 
Close  at  his  side  was  Titus 

On  an  Apulian  steed,50  250 

Titus,  the  youngest  Tarquin, 

Too  ffood  for  such  a  breed. 


XIV. 

Now  on  each  side  the  leaders 

Gave  signal  for  the  charge ; 
And  on  each  side  the  footmen  255 

Strode  on  with  lance  and  targe ; 
And  on  each  side  the  horsemen 

Struck  their  spurs  deep  in  gore ; 
And  front  to  front  the  armies 

Met  with  a  mighty  roar  :  260 

And  under  that  great  battle 

The  earth  with  blood  was  red ; 
And,  like  the  Pomptine  fog 51  at  morn, 

The  dust  hung  overhead ; 
And  louder  still  and  louder  265 

Eose  from  the  darkened  field 
The  braying  of  the  war-horns, 

The  clang  of  sword  and  shield, 
The  rush  of  squadrons  sweeping 

Like  whirlwinds  o'er  the  plain,  270 

The  shouting  of  the  slayers, 

And  screeching  of  the  slain. 


82  LAYS   OF    ANCIENT    ROME. 


XV 

False  Sextus  rode  out  foremost : 

His  look  was  high  and  bold ; 
His  corslet  was  of  bison's  hide,  275 

Plated  with  steel  and  gold. 
As  glares  the  famished  eagle 

From  the  Digentian  rock 52 
On  a  choice  lamb  that  bounds  alone 

Before  Bandusia's  flock,53  280 

Herminius  glared  on  Sextus, 

And  came  with  eagle  speed, 
Herminius  on  black  Auster, 

Brave  champion  on  brave  steed ; 
In  his  right  hand  the  broadsword  285 

That  kept  the  bridge  so  well, 
And  on  his  helm  the  crown54  he  won 

When  proud  Fidenae55  fell. 
Woe  to  the  maid  whose  lover 

Shall  cross  his  path  to-day  !  290 

False  Sextus  saw,  and  trembled, 

And  turned,  and  fled  away. 
As  turns,  as  flies,  the  woodman 

In  the  Calabrian  brake, 
When  through  the  reeds  gleams  the  round  eye    295 

Of  that  fell  speckled  snake 56 ; 
So  turned,  so  fled,  false  Sextus, 

And  hid  him  in  the  rear, 
Behind  the  dark  Lavinian  ranks, 

Bristling  Avith  crest  and  spear.  3C0 


XVI. 


But  far  to  north  iEbutius, 
The  Master  of  the  Knights, 


BATTLE    OF    THE    LAKE    REGILLUS.  83 

Gave  Tubero  of  Norba 

To  feed  the  Porcian  kites. 
Next  under  those  red  horse-hoofs  305 

Flaccus  of  Setia  lay  ; 
Better  had  he  been  priming 

Among  his  elms  that  day. 
Mamilius  saw  the  slaughter, 

And  tossed  his  golden  crest,  310 

And  towards  the  Master  of  the  Knights 

Through  the  thick  battle  pressed. 
iEbutius  smote  Mamilius 

So  fiercely  on  the  shield 
That  the  great  lord  of  Tusculum  315 

Well  nigh  rolled  on  the  field. 
Mamilius  smote  iEbutius, 

With  a  good  aim  and  true, 
Just  where  the  neck  and  shoulder  join, 

And  pierced  him  through  and  through;         320 
And  brave  iEbutius  Elva 

Fell  swooning  to  the  ground  : 
But  a  thick  wall  of  bucklers 

Encompassed  him  around. 
His  clients  from  the  battle  325 

Bare  him  some  little  space, 
And  filled  a  helm  from  the  dark  lake, 

And  bathed  his  brow  and  face  ; 
And  when  at  last  he  opened 

His  swimming  eyes  to  light,  330 

Men  say,  the  earliest  word  he  spake 

Was,  "  Friends,  how  goes  the  fight  ?  n 

XVII. 

But  meanwhile  in  the  centre 

Great  deeds  of  arms  were  wrought ; 


84  LAYS   OF   ANCIENT   ROME. 

There  Auhis  the  Dictator  335 

And  there  Valerius 57  fought. 
Aulus  with  his  good- broadsword 

A  bloody  passage  cleared 
To  where,  amidst  the  thickest  foes, 

He  saw  the  long  white  beard.  340 

Flat  lighted  that  good  broadsword 

Upon  proud  Tarquin's  head. 
He  dropped  the  lance  :  he  dropped  the  reins  : 

He  fell  as  fall  the  dead. 
Down  Aulus  springs  to  slay  him,  345 

With  eyes  like  coals  of  fire ; 
But  faster  Titus  hath  sprung  down, 

And  hath  bestrode  his  sire. 
Latian  captains,  Roman  knights, 

Fast  down  to  earth  they  spring,  350 

And  hand  to  hand  they  fight  on  foot 

Around  the  ancient  king. 
First  Titus  gave  tall  Cseso 

A  death  wound  in  the  face ; 
Tall  Cseso  was  the  bravest  man  355 

Of  the  brave  Fabian  race  : 
Aulus  slew  Rex  of  Gabii, 

The  priest  of  Juno's  shrine  : 58 
Valerius  smote  down  Julius, 

Of  Rome's  great  Julian  line  ;  360 

Julius,  who  left  his  mansion 

High  on  the  Velian  hill,59 
And  through  all  turns  of  weal  and  woe 

Followed  proud  Tarquin  still. 
Now  right  across  proud  Tarquin  365 

A  corpse  was  Julius  laid ; 
And  Titus  groaned  with  rage  and  grief, 

And  at  Valerius  made. 
Valerius  struck  at  Titus, 

And  lopped  off  half  his  crest ;  370 


BATTLE    OF   THE    LAKE   REGILLUS.  85 

But  Titus  stabbed  Valerius 

A  span  deep  in  the  breast. 
Like  a  mast  snapped  by  the  tempest, 

Valerius  reeled  and  fell. 
Ah  !  woe  is  me  for  the  good  house  375 

That  loves  the  people  well ! 
Then  shouted  loud  the  Latines  ; 

And  with  one  rush  they  bore 
The  struggling  Eomans  backward 

Three  lances'  length  and  more :  380 

And  up  they  took  proud  Tarquin, 

And  laid  him  on  a  shield, 
And  four  strong  yeomen  bare  him, 

Still  senseless,  from  the  field. 

XVIII. 

But  fiercer  grew  the  fighting  385 

Around  Valerius  dead ; 
For  Titus  dragged  him  by  the  foot, 

And  Aulus  by  the  head. 
"  On,  Latines,  on  !  "  quoth  Titus, 

"  See  how  the  rebels  fly  !  "  390 

"  Romans,  stand  firm  !  "  quoth  Aulus, 

"  And  win  this  fight  or  die  ! 
They  must  not  give  Valerius 

To  raven  and  to  kite  ; 
For  aye  Valerius  loathed  the  wrong,  395 

And  aye  upheld  the  right : 
And  for  your  wives  and  babies 

In  the  front  rank  he  fell. 
Now  play  the  men  for  the  good  house 

That  loves  the  people  well ! "  400 

XIX. 

Then  tenfold  round  the  body 
The  roar  of  battle  rose, 


86  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT   ROME. 

Like  the  roar  of  a  burning  forest, 

When  a  strong  north  wind  blows. 
Now  backward,  and  now  forward,  405 

Eocked  furiously  the  fray, 
Till  none  could  see  Valerius, 

And  none  wist  where  he  lay. 
For  shivered  arms  and  ensigns 

Were  heaped  there  in  a  mound,  410 

And  corpses  stiff,  and  dying  men 

That  writhed  and  gnawed  the  ground  ; 
And  wounded  horses  kicking, 

And  snorting  purple  foam  : 
Eight  well  did  such  a  couch  befit  415 

A  Consular  of  Eonie.60 

xx. 

But  north  looked  the  Dictator  ; 

North  looked  he  long  and  hard ; 
And  spake  to  Caius  Cossus, 

The  Captain  of  his  Guard  :  420 

"  Caius,  of  all  the  Eomans 

Thou  hast  the  keenest  sight ; 
Say,  what  through  yonder  storm  of  dust 

Comes  from  the  Latian  right  ?  " 

XXI. 

Then  answered  Caius  Cossus  425 

"  I  see  an  evil  sight ; 61 
The  banner  of  proud  Tusculum 

Comes  from  the  Latian  right : 
I  see  the  plumed  horsemen ; 

And  far  before  the  rest  430 

I  see  the  dark-grey  charger, 

I  see  the  purple  vest; 


BATTLE    OF    THE   LAKE    REGILLUS.  87 

I  see  the  golden  helmet 

That  shines  far  off  like  flame ; 
So  ever  rides  Mamilius,  435 

Prince  of  the  Latian  name." 


XXII. 

"  Now  hearken,  Cains  Cossus : 

Spring  on  thy  horse's  back ; 
Ride  as  the  wolves  of  Apennine 

Were  all  upon  thy  track ;  440 

Haste  to  our  southward  battle  : 

And  never  draw  thy  rein 
Until  thou  find  Herminius, 

And  bid  him  come  amain." 


XXIII. 

So  Aulus  spake,  and  turned  him  445 

Again  to  that  fierce  strife ; 
And  Caius  Cossus  mounted, 

And  rode  for  death  and  life. 
Loud  clanged  beneath  his  horse-hoofs 

The  helmets  of  the  dead,  450 

And  many  a  curdling  pool  of  blood 

Splashed  him  from  heel  to  head. 
So  came  he  far  to  southward, 

Where  fought  the  Roman  host, 
Against  the  banners  of  the  marsh  455 

And  banners  of  the  coast. 
Like  corn  before  the  sickle 

The  stout  Lavinians  fell, 
Beneath  the  edge  of  the  true  sword 

That  kept  the  bridge  so  well.  460 


88  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT    ROME. 


XXIV. 

"  Herminius  !  Aulus  greets  thee  ; 

He  bids  thee  come  with  speed, 
To  help  our  central  battle  ; 

For  sore  is  there  our  need. 
There  wars  the  youngest  Tarquin,  465 

And  there  the  Crest  of  Flame, 
The  Tusculan  Mamilius, 

Prince  of  the  Latian  name. 
Valerius  hath  fallen  fighting 

In  front  of  our  array  :  470 

And  Aulus  of  the  seventy  fields 

Alone  upholds  the  day." 

XXV. 

Herminius  beat  his  bosom : 

But  never  a  word  he  spake. 
He  clapped  his  hand  on  Auster's  mane :  475 

He  gave  the  reins  a  shake, 
Away,  away  went  Auster, 

Like  an  arrow  from  the  bow : 
Black  Auster  was  the  fleetest  steed 

From  Aufidus  62  to  Po.63  480 

XXVI. 

Eight  glad  were  all  the  Eomans 

Who,  in  that  hour  of  dread, 
Against  great  odds  bare  up  the  war 

Around  Valerius  dead, 
When  from  the  south  the  cheering  485 

Bose  with  a  mighty  swell ; 
"  Herminius  comes,  Herminius, 

Who  kept  the  bridge  so  well ! " 


BATTLE    OF    THE   LAKE   REGILLUS.  89 


XXVII. 

Mamilius  spied  Herminius, 

And  dashed  across  the  way.  490 

"  Herminius  !  I  have  sought  thee 

Through  many  a  bloody  day. 
One  of  us  two,  Herminius, 

Shall  never  more  go  home. 
I  will  lay  on  for  Tusculum,  495 

And  lay  thou  on  for  Eome !  " 

XXVIII. 

All  round  them  paused  the  battle, 

While  met  in  mortal  fray 
The  Roman  and  the  Tusculan, 

The  horses  black  and  grey.  500 

Herminius  smote  Mamilius 

Through  breast-plate  and  through  breast ; 
And  fast  flowed  out  the  purple  blood 

Over  the  purple  vest. 
Mamilius  smote  Herminius  505 

Through  head-piece  and  through  head; 
And  side  by  side  those  chiefs  of  pride 

Together  fell  down  dead. 
Down  fell  they  dead  together 

In  a  great  lake  of  gore  ;  510 

And  still  stood  all  who  saw  them  fall 

While  men  might  count  a  score. 

XXIX. 

Fast,  fast,  with  heels  wild  spurning, 

The  dark-grey  charger  fled : 
He  burst  through  ranks  of  fighting  men ;         515 

He  sprang  o'er  heaps  of  dead. 


90  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT    EOME. 

His  bridle  far  out-streaming. 

His  flanks  all  blood  and  foam, 
He  sought  the  southern  mountains,64 

The  mountains  of  his  home.  520 

The  pass  was  steep  and  rugged, 

The  wolves  they  howled  and  whined ; 
But  he  ran  like  a  whirlwind  up  the  pass, 

And  he  left  the  wolves  behind. 
Through  many  a  startled  hamlet  525 

Thundered  his  flying  feet ; 
He  rushed  through  the  gate  of  Tusculum, 

He  rushed  up  the  long  white  street ; 
He  rushed  by  tower  and  temple, 

And  paused  not  from  his  race  530 

Till  he  stood  before  his  master's  door 

In  the  stately  market-place. 
And  straightway  round  him  gathered 

A  pale  and  trembling  crowd, 
And  when  they  knew  him,  cries  of  rage  535 

Brake  forth,  and  wailing  loud : 
And  women  rent  their  tresses 

For  their  great  prince's  fall ; 
And  old  men  girt  on  their  old  swords, 

And  went  to  man  the  wall.  540 


XXX. 

But,  like  a  graven  image, 

Black  Auster  kept  his  place, 
And  ever  wistfully  he  looked 

Into  his  masters  face. 
The  raven-mane  that  daily  545 

With  pats  and  fond  caresses, 
The  young  Herminia  washed  and  combed 

And  twined  in  even  tresses, 


BATTLE    OF    THE    LAKE    REGILLUS.  91 

And  decked  with  coloured  ribands 

From  her  own  gay  attire,  550 

Hung  sadly  o'er  her  father's  corpse 

In  carnage  and  in  mire.    ■ 
Forth  with  a  shout  sprang  Titus, 

And  seized  black  Auster's  rein. 
Then  Aulus  sware  a  fearful  oath,  555 

And  ran  at  him  amain. 
"  The  furies  ^  of  thy  brother 

With  me  and  mine  abide, 
If  one  of  your  accursed  house 

Upon  black  Auster  ride  !  "  560 

As  on  an  Alpine  watch-tower 

From  heaven  comes  down  the  flame, 
Full  on  the  neck  of  Titus 

The  blade  of  Aulus  came  : 
And  out  the  red  blood  spouted,  565 

In  a  wide  arch  and  tall, 
As  spouts  a  fountain  in  the  court 

Of  some  rich  Capuan's  hall.66 
The  knees  of  all  the  Latines 

Were  loosened  with  dismay  570 

When  dead,  on  dead  Herminius, 

The  bravest  Tarquin  lay. 

XXXI. 

And  Aulus  the  Dictator 

Stroked  Auster's  raven  mane, 
With  heed  he  looked  unto  the  girths,  575 

With  heed  unto  the  rein. 
"  Now  bear  me  well,  black  Auster, 

Into  yon  thick  array  ; 
And  thou  and  I  will  have  revenge 

For  thy  good  lord  this  day."  580 


92  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT   ROME. 


XXXII. 

So  spake  he;  and  was  buckling 

Tighter  black  Auster's  band, 
When  he  was  aware  of  a  princely  pair 

That  rode  at  his  right  hand. 
So  like  they  were,  no  mortal  585 

Might  one  from  other  know : 
White  as  snow  their  armour  was : 

Their  steeds  were  white  as  snow. 
Never  on  earthly  anvil 

Did  such  rare  armour  gleam  ;  590 

And  never  did  such  gallant  steeds 

Drink  of  an  earthly  stream. 

XXXIII. 

And  all  who  saw  them  trembled, 

And  pale  grew  every  cheek ; 
And  Aulus  the  Dictator  595 

Scarce  gathered  voice  to  speak. 
"  Say  by  what  name  men  call  you  ? 

What  city  is  your  home  ? 
And  wherefore  ride  ye  in  such  guise 

Before  the  ranks  of  Rome  ?  "  600 

XXXIV. 

"  By  many  names  men  call  us ; 

In  many  lands  we  dwell : 
Well  Samothracia 67  knows  us  ; 

Cyrene 68  knows  us  well. 
Our  house  in  gay  Tarentum 69  605 

Is  hung  each  morn  with  flowers : 
High  o'er  the  masts  of  Syracuse70 

Our  marble  portal  towers  ; 


BATTLE    OF    THE   LAKE    REGILLUS.  93 

But  by  the  proud  Eurotas 71 

Is  our  dear  native  home  ;  610 

And  for  the  right  we  come  to  fight 

Before  the  ranks  of  Rome." 

XXXV. 

So  answered  those  strange  horsemen, 

And  each  couched  low  his  spear ; 
And  forthwith  all  the  ranks  of  Rome  615 

Were  bold,  and  of  good  cheer : 
And  on  the  thirty  armies 

Came  wonder  and  affright, 
And  Ardea72  wavered  on  the  left, 

And  Cora  on  the  right.  620 

"  Rome  to  the  charge  !  "  cried  Aulus  ; 

"  The  foe  begins  to  yield ! 
Charge  for  the  hearth  of  Vesta  !73 

Charge  for  the  Golden  Shield ! 74 
Let  no  man  stop  to  plunder,  625 

But  slay,  and  slay,  and  slay ; 
The  Gods  who  live  for  ever 

Are  on  our  side  to-day." 

xxxvi. 

Then  the  fierce  trumpet-flourish 

From  earth  to  heaven  arose,  630 

The  kites  know  well  the  long  stern  swell 

That  bids  the  Romans  close. 
Then  the  good  sword  of  Aulus 

Was  lifted  up  to  slay : 
Then,  like  a  crag  down  Apennine,  635 

Rushed  Auster  through  the  fray. 
But  under  those  strange  horsemen 

Still  thicker  lay  the  slain  ; 


94  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT   ROME. 

And  after  those  strange  horses 

Black  Auster  toiled  in  vain.  640 

Behind  them  Eome's  long  battle 

Came  rolling  on  the  foe, 
Ensigns  dancing  wild  above, 

Blades  all  in  line  below. 
So  comes  the  Po  in  flood-time  645 

Upon  the  Celtic  plain 7b : 
So  comes  the  squall,  blacker  than  night, 

Upon  the  Adrian  main. 
Now,  by  our  Sire  Quirinus,76 

It  was  a  goodly  sight  650 

To  see  the  thirty  standards 

Swept  down  the  tide  of  flight. 
So  flies  the  spray  of  Adria 

When  the  black  squall  doth  blow, 
So  corn-sheaves  in  the  flood-time  655 

Spin  down  the  whirling  Po. 
False  Sextus  to  the  mountains 

Turned  first  his  horse's  head ; 
And  fast  fled  Ferentinum, 

And  fast  Lanuvium  77  fled.  660 

The  horsemen  of  Momentum 78 

Spurred  hard  out  of  the  fray ; 
The  footmen  of  Velitrse 

Threw  shield  and  spear  away. 
And  underfoot  was  trampled,  665 

Amidst  the  mud  and  gore, 
The  banner  of  proud  Tusculum, 

That  never  stooped  before  : 
And  down  went  Flavius  Faustus, 

Who  led  his  stately  ranks  670 

From  where  the  apple  blossoms  wave 

On  Anio's  echoing  banks, 
And  Tullus  of  Arpinum,79 

Chief  of  the  Volscian  aids, 


BATTLE    OF    THE    LAKE    REGILLUS.  95 

And  Metius  with  the  long  fair  curls,  675 

The  love  of  Amur's  m  maids, 
And  the  white  head  of  Yulso, 

The  great  Arician  seer,81 
And  Xepos  and  Laurenturn, 

The  hunter  of  the  deer  ;  680 

And  in  the  back  false  Sextus 

Felt  the  good  Roman  steel, 
And  wriggling  in  the  dust  he  died, 

Like  a  worm  beneath  the  wheel : 
And  fliers  and  pursuers  685 

Were  mingled  in  a  mass  ; 
And  far  away  the  battle 

Went  roaring  through  the  pass. 

XXXVII. 

Sempronius  Atratinus 

Sate  in  the  Eastern  Gate,  690 

Beside  him  were  three  Fathers, 

Each  in  his  chair  of  state  ; 
Fabius,  whose  nine  stout  grandsons 

That  day  were  in  the  field, 
And  Manlius,  eldest  of  the  Twelve  695 

Who  kept  the  Golden  Shield ; 
And  Sergius,  the  High  Pontiff,82 

For  wisdom  far  renowned; 
In  all  Etruria's  colleges  ^ 

Was  no  such  Pontiff  found.  700 

And  all  around  the  portal, 

And  high  above  the  wall, 
Stood  a  great  throng  of  people, 

But  sad  and  silent  all  ; 
Young  lads,  and  stooping  elders  705 

That  might  not  bear  the  mail. 


96  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT    ROMS. 

Matrons  with  lips  that  quivered, 

And  maids  with  faces  pale. 
Since  the  first  gleam  of  daylight, 

Senipronius  had  not  ceased  710 

To  listen  for  the  rushing 

Of  horse-hoofs  from  the  east. 
The  mist  of  eve  was  rising, 

The  sun  was  hastening  down. 
When  he  was  aware  of  a  princely  pair  715 

Fast  pricking  towards  the  town. 
So  like  they  were,  man  never 

Saw  twins  so  like  before  ; 
Red  with  gore  their  armour  was, 

Their  steeds  were  red  with  gore.  720 

XXXVIII. 

"  Hail  to  the  great  Asylum  !  ^ 

Hail  to  the  hill-tops  seven  !  & 
Hail  to  the  fire  that  burns  for  aye.86 

And  the  shield  that  fell  from  heaven  ! 
This  day  by  Lake  Regillus,  725 

Under  the  Porcian  height, 
All  in  the  lands  of  Tusculum 

Was  fought  a  glorious  fight, 
To-morrow  your  Dictator 

Shall  bring  in  triumph  home  730 

The  spoils  of  thirty  cities 

To  deck  the  shrines  of  Borne  !  " 

XXXIX. 

Then  burst  from  that  great  concourse 

A  shout  that  shook  the  towers, 
And  some  ran  north,  and  some  ran  south,         735 

Crying,  "  The  day  is  ours  !  " 


BATTLE    OB     THE    LAKE    REGILLl  S.  97 

But  on  rode  these  strange  horsemen. 

With  slow  and  lordly  pace  ; 
And  none  who  saw  their  bearing 

Durst  ask  their  name  or  race.  740 

On  rode  they  to  the  Forum, 

While  laurel-boughs  and  flowers, 
From  house-tops  and  from  windows, 

Fell  on  their  crests  in  showers. 
When  they  drew  nigh  to  Vesta.-7  745 

They  vaulted  down  amain. 
And  washed  their  horses  in  the  well 

That  springs  by  Vesta's  fane. 
And  straight  again  they  mounted, 

And  rode  to  Vesta's  door;  750 

Then,  like  a  blast,  away  they  passed, 

And  no  man  saw  them  more. 


XL. 

And  all  the  people  trembled, 

And  pale  grew  every  cheek ; 
And  Sergius  the  High  Pontiff  755 

Alone  found  voice  to  speak : 
u  The  gods  who  live  for  ever 

Have  fought  for  Rome  to-day ! 
These  be  the  Great  Twin  Brethren 

To  whom  the  Dorians  pray.  760 

Back  comes  the  Chief  in  triumph, 

Who,  in  the  hour  of  fight. 
Hath  seen  the  Great  Twin  Brethren 

In  harness  on  his  right.88 
Safe  comes  the  ship  to  haven,89  765 

Through  billows  and  through  gales, 
If  once  the  Great  Twin  Brethren 

Sit  shining  on  the  sails. 


98  LAYS   OF   ANCIENT   ROME. 

Wherefore  they  washed  their  horses 

In  Vesta's  holy  well,  770 

Wherefore  they  rode  to  Vesta's  door, 

I  know,  but  may  not  tell. 
Here,  hard  by  Vesta's  Temple, 

Build  we  a  stately  dome 
Unto  the  Great  Twin  Brethren  775 

Who  fought  so  well  for  Rome. 
And  when  the  months  returning 

Bring  back  this  day  of  fight, 
The  proud  Ides  of  Quintilis, 

Marked  evermore  with  white,  780 

Unto  the  Great  Twin  Brethren 

Let  all  the  people  throng, 
With  chaplets  and  with  offerings, 

With  music  and  with  song ; 
And  let  the  doors  and  windows  785 

Be  hung  with  garlands  all, 
And  let  the  Knights  be  summoned 

To  Mars  without  the  wall : 
Thence  let  them  ride  in  purple 

With  joyous  trumpet-sound,  790 

Each  mounted  on  his  war-horse, 

And  each  with  olive  crowned  ; 
And  pass  in  solemn  order 

Before  the  sacred  dome, 
Where  dwell  the  Great  Twin  Brethren  795 

Who  fought  so  well  for  Rome !  " 


VIRGINIA. 


A  collection"  consisting  exclusively  of  war-songs  would 
give  an  imperfect,  or  rather  an  erroneous,  notion  of  the 
spirit  of  the  old  Latin  ballads.  The  Patricians,  during 
more  than  a  century  after  the  expulsion  of  the  Kings,  held 
all  the  high  military  commands.  A  Plebeian,  even  though, 
like  Lucius  Siccius,  he  were  distinguished  by  his  valour  and 
knowledge  of  war,  could  serve  only  in  subordinate  posts. 
A  minstrel,  therefore,  who  wished  to  celebrate  the  early 
triumphs  of  his  country,  could  hardly  take  any  but  Patri- 
cians for  his  heroes.  The  warriors  who  are  mentioned  in 
the  two  preceding  lays,  Horatius,  Lartius,  Herminius,  Aulus 
Posthumius,  iEbutius  Elva,  Sempronius  Atratinus,  Valerius 
Poplicola,  were  all  members  of  the  dominant  order;  and  a 
poet  who  was  singing  their  praises,  whatever  his  own  politi- 
cal opinions  might  be,  would  naturally  abstain  from  insult- 
ing the  class  to  which  they  belonged,  and  from  reflecting 
on  the  system  which  had  placed  such  men  at  the  head  of 
the  legions  of  the  Commonwealth. 

But  there  was  a  class  of  compositions  in  which  the  great 
families  were  by  no  means  so  courteously  treated.  No  parts 
of  early  Roman  history  are  richer  with  poetical  colouring 
than  those  which  relate  to  the  long  contest  between  the 
privileged  houses  and  the  commonalty.  The  population  of 
Rome  was,  from  a  very  early  period,  divided  into  hereditary 
castes,  which,  indeed,  readily  united  to  repel  foreign  ene- 
mies, but  which  regarded  each  other,  during  many  years. 

99 

LofC. 


100  LAYS    OF   ANCIENT   ROME. 

with  bitter  animosity.  Between  those  castes  there  was  a 
barrier  hardly  less  strong  than  that  which,  at  Venice, 
parted  the  members  of  the  Great  Council  from  their  coun- 
trymen. In  some  respects,  indeed,  the  line  which  separated 
an  Icilius  or  a  Duilius  from  a  Posthumius  or  a  Fabius  was 
even  more  deeply  marked  than  that  which  separated  the 
rower  of  a  gondola  from  a  Contarini  or  a  Morosini.  At 
ATenice  the  distinction  was  merely  civil.  At  Eome  it  was 
both  civil  and  religious.  Among  the  grievances  under  which 
the  Plebeians  suffered,  three  were  felt  as  peculiarly  severe. 
They  were  excluded  from  the  highest  magistracies,  they 
were  excluded  from  all  share  in  the  public  lands ;  and  they 
were  ground  down  to  the  dust  by  partial  and  barbarous 
legislation  touching  pecuniary  contracts.  The  ruling  class 
in  Koine  was  a  monied  class ;  and  it  made  and  administered 
the  laws  with  a  view  solely  to  its  own  interest.  Thus  the 
relation  between  lender  and  borrower  was  mixed  up  with 
the  relation  between  sovereign  and  subject.  The  great  men 
held  a  large  portion  of  the  community  in  dependence  by 
means  of  advances  at  enormous  usury.  The  law  of  debt, 
framed  by  creditors,  and  for  the  protection  of  creditors, 
was  the  most  horrible  that  has  ever  been  known  among 
men.  The  liberty,  and  even  the  life,  of  the  insolvent  were 
at  the  mercy  of  the  Patrician  money-lenders.  Children 
often  became  slaves  in  consequence  of  the  misfortunes  of 
their  parents.  The  debtor  was  imprisoned,  not  in  a  public 
gaol  under  the  care  of  impartial  public  functionaries,  but  in 
a  private  workhouse  belonging  to  the  creditor.  Frightful 
stories  were  told  respecting  these  dungeons.  It  was  said 
that  torture  and  brutal  violation  were  common;  that  tight 
stocks,  heavy  chains,  scanty  measures  of  food,  were  used  to 
punish  wretches  guilty  of  nothing  but  poverty;  and  that 
brave  soldiers,  whose  breasts  were  covered  with  honourable 
scars,  were  often  marked  still  more  deeply  on  the  back  by 
the  scourges  of  high-born  usurers. 


VIRGINIA.  101 

The  Plebeians  were,  however,  not  wholly  without  con- 
stitutional rights.  From  an  early  period  they  had  been 
admitted  to  some  share  of  political  power.  They  were 
enrolled  each  in  his  century,  and  were  allowed  a  share, 
considerable  though  not  proportioned  to  their  numerical 
strength,  in  the  disposal  of  those  high  dignities  from  which 
they  were  themselves  excluded.  Thus  their  position  bore 
some  resemblance  to  that  of  the  Irish  Catholics  during  the 
interval  between  the  year  1792  and  the  year  1829.  The 
Plebeians  had  also  the  privilege  of  annually  appointing 
officers,  named  Tribunes,  who  had  no  active  share  in  the 
government  of  the  Commonwealth,  but  who,  by  degrees, 
acquired  a  power  formidable  even  to  the  ablest  and  most 
resolute  Consuls  and  Dictators.  The  person  of  the  Tribune 
was  inviolable;  and  though  he  could  directly  effect  little, 
he  could  obstruct  everything. 

During  more  than  a  century  after  the  institution  of  the 
Tribuneship,  the  Commons  struggled  manfully  for  the  re- 
moval of  the  grievances  under  which  they  laboured ;  and, 
in  spite  of  many  checks  and  reverses,  succeeded  in  wringing 
concession  after  concession  from  the  stubborn  aristocracy. 
At  length,  in  the  year  of  the  city  378,  both  parties  mustered 
their  whole  strength  for  their  last  and  most  desperate  con- 
flict. The  popular  and  active  Tribune.  Cams  Licinius,  pro- 
posed the  three  memorable  laws1  which  are  called  by  his 
name,  and  which  were  intended  to  redress  the  three  great 
evils  of  which  the  Plebeians  complained.  He  was  sup- 
ported, with  eminent  ability  and  firmness,  by  his  colleague, 
Lucius  Sextius.  The  struggle  appears  to  have  been  the 
fiercest  that  ever  in  any  community  terminated  without  an 
appeal  to  arms.  If  such  a  contest  had  raged  in  any  Greek 
city,  the  streets  would  have  run  with  blood.  But,  even  in 
the  paroxysms  of  faction,  the  Roman  retained  his  gravity, 
his  respect  for  law,  and  his  tenderness  for  the  lives  of  his 
fellow-citizens.     Year  after  year  Licinius  and  Sextius  were 


102  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT    ROME. 

re-elected  Tribunes.  Year  after  year,  if  the  narrative  which 
has  come  down  to  us  is  to  be  trusted,  they  continued  to 
exert,  to  the  full  extent,  their  power  of  stopping  the  whole 
machine  of  government.  No  curule  magistrates  could  be 
chosen ;  no  military  muster  could  be  held.  We  know  too 
little  of  the  state  of  Borne  in  those  days  to  be  able  to  con- 
jecture how,  during  that  long  anarchy,  the  peace  was  kept, 
and  ordinary  justice  administered  between  man  and  man. 
The  animosity  of  both  parties  rose  to  the  greatest  height. 
The  excitement,  we  may  well  suppose,  would  have  been 
peculiarly  intense  at  the  annual  election  of  Tribunes.  On 
such  occasions  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  great 
families  did  all  that  could  be  done,  by  threats  and  caresses, 
to  break  the  union  of  the  Plebeians.  That  union,  however, 
proved  indissoluble.  At  length  the  good  cause  triumphed. 
The  Licinian  laws  were  carried.  Lucius  Sextius  was  the 
first  Plebeian  Consul,  Caius  Licinius  the  third. 

The  results  of  this  great  change  were  singularly  happy 
and  glorious.  Two  centuries  of  prosperity,  harmony,  and 
victory  followed  the  reconciliation  of  the  orders.  Men  who 
remembered  Eome  engaged  in  waging  petty  wars  almost 
within  sight  of  the  Capitol  lived  to  see  her  the  mistress  of 
Italy.  While  the  disabilities  of  the  Plebeians  continued, 
she  was  scarcely  able  to  maintain  her  ground  against  the 
Volscians  and  Hernicans.  When  those  disabilities  were 
removed,  she  rapidly  became  more  than  a  match  for  Car- 
thage and  Macedon. 

During  the  great  Licinian  contest  the  Plebeian  poets 
were,  doubtless,  not  silent.  Even  in  modern  times  songs 
have  been  by  no  means  without  influence  on  public  affairs; 
and  we  may  therefore  infer  that,  in  a  society  where  print- 
ing was  unknown,  and  where  books  were  rare,  a  pathetic 
or  humorous  party-ballad  must  have  produced  effects  such 
as  we  can  but  faintly  conceive.  It  is  certain  that  satirical 
poems  were  common  at  Rome  from  a  very  early  period. 


VIRGINIA.  103 

The  rustics,  who  lived  at  a  distance  from  the  seat  of  govern- 
ment, and  took  little  part  in  the  strife  of  factions,  gave 
vent  to  their  petty  local  animosities  in  coarse  Fescennine 
verse.2  The  lampoons  of  the  city  were  doubtless  of  a  higher 
order  ;  and  -their  sting  was  early  felt  by  the  nobility.  For 
in  the  Twelve  Tables,  long  before  the  time  of  the  Licinian 
laws,  a  severe  punishment  was  denounced  against  the 
citizen  who  should  compose  or  recite  verses  reflecting  on 
another.*  Satire  is,  indeed,  the  only  sort  of  composition 
in  which  the  Latin  poets,  whose  works  have  come  down  to 
us,  were  not  mere  imitators  of  foreign  models;  and  it  is 
therefore  the  only  sort  of  composition  in  which  they  have 
never  been  rivalled.  It  was  not,  like  their  tragedy,  their 
comedy,  their  epic  and  lyric  poetry,  a  hothouse  plant  which, 
in  return  for  assiduous  and  skilful  culture,  gave  only 
scanty  and  sickly  fruits.  It  was  hardy  and  full  of  sap; 
and  in  all  the  various  juices  which  it  yielded  might  be 
distinguished  the  flavour  of  the  Ausonian  soil.  "  Satire," 
says  Quinctilian,  with  just  pride,  "is  all  our  own."  Satire 
sprang,  in  truth,  naturally  from  the  constitution  of  the 
Roman  government  and  from  the  spirit  of  the  Roman  peo- 
ple; and,  though  at  length  subjected  to  metrical  rules 
derived  from  Greece,  retained  to  the  last  an  essentially 
Roman  character.  Lucilius  was  the  earliest  satirist  whose 
works  were  held  in  esteem  under  the  Caesars.  But  many 
years  before  Lucilius  was  born,  Naevius  had  been  flung  into 
a  dungeon,  and  guarded  there  with  circumstances  of  un- 
usual rigour,  on  account  of  the  bitter  lines  in  which  he  had 
attacked  the  great  Caecilian  family. t  The  genius  and  spirit 
of  the  Roman  satirists  survived  the  liberty  of  their  country, 

*  Cicero  justly  infers  from  this  law  that  there  had  been  early  Latin 
poets  whose  works  had  been  lost  before  his  time.  "  Quamquam  id  quidem 
etiam  xii  tabulae  declarant,  condi  jam  turn  solitum  esse  carmen,  quod  ne 
liceret  fieri  ad  alterius  injuriam  lege  sanxerunt."  —  Tusc.  iv.  2. 

t  Plautus,  Miles  Glonosus.     Aulus  Gellius,  iii.  3. 


104  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT    ROME. 

and  were  not  extinguished  by  the  cruel  despotism  of  the 
Julian  and  Flavian  Emperors.  The  great  poet  who  told 
the  story  of  Domitian's  turbot3  was  the  legitimate  successor 
of  those  forgotten  minstrels  whose  songs  animated  the  fac- 
tions of  the  infant  Eepublic. 

These  minstrels,  as  Niebuhr  has  remarked,  appear  to 
have  generally  taken  the  popular  side.  We  can  hardly  be 
mistaken  in  supposing  that,  at  the  great  crisis  of  the  civil 
conflict,  they  employed  themselves  in  versif}Ting  all  the 
most  powerful  and  virulent  speeches  of  the  Tribunes,  and 
in  heaping  abuse  on  the  leaders  of  the  aristocracy.  Every 
personal  defect,  every  domestic  scandal,  every  tradition 
dishonourable  to  a  noble  house,  would  be  sought  out, 
brought  into  notice,  and  exaggerated.  The  illustrious  head 
of  the  aristocratical  party,  Marcus  Furius  Camillus,  might 
perhaps  be,  in  some  measure,  protected  by  his  venerable 
age  and  by  the  memory  of  his  great  services  to  the  State. 
But  Appius  Claudius  Crassus  enjoyed  no  such  immunity. 
He  was  descended  from  a  long  line  of  ancestors  distin- 
guished by  their  haughty  demeanour,  and  by  the  inflexi- 
bility with  which  they  had  withstood  all  the  demands  of 
the  Plebeian  order.  While  the  political  conduct  and  the 
deportment  of  the  Claudian  nobles  drew  upon  them  the 
fiercest  public  hatred,  they  were  accused  of  wanting,  if  any 
credit  is  due  to  the  early  history  of  Rome,  a  class  of  quali- 
ties which,  in  the  military  commonwealth,  is  sufficient  to 
cover  a  multitude  of  offences.  The  chiefs  of  the  family 
appear  to  have  been  eloquent,  versed  in  civil  business,  and 
learned  after  the  fashion  of  their  age ;  but  in  war  they  were 
not  distinguished  by  skill  or  valour.  Some  of  them,  as  if 
conscious  where  their  weakness  lay,  had,  when  filling  the 
highest  magistracies,  taken  internal  administration  as  their 
department  of  public  business,  and  left  the  military  com- 
mand to  their  colleagues. *     One  of  them  had  been  intrusted 

*  In  the  years  of  the  city  260,  .°,04,  and  330. 


VIRGINIA.  105 

with  an  army,  and  had  failed  ignominiously.*  None  of 
them  had  been  honoured  with  a  triumph.  Xone  of  them 
had  achieved  any  martial  exploit,  such  as  those  by  which 
Lucius  Quinctius  Cineinnatus,  Titus  Quinctius  Capitolinus, 
Aulus  Cornelius  Cossus,  and,  above  all,  the  great  Camillus, 
had  extorted  the  reluctant  esteem  of  the  multitude.  Dur- 
ing the  Licinian  conflict,  Appius  Claudius  Crassus  signalised 
himself  by  the  ability  and  severity  with  which  he  harangued 
against  the  two  great  agitators.  He  would  naturally,  there- 
fore, be  the  favourite  mark  of  the  Plebeian  satirists ;  nor 
would  they  have  been  at  a  loss  to  find  a  point  on  which  he 
was  open  to  attack. 

His  grandfather,  called,  like  himself,  Appius  Claudius, 
had  left  a  name  as  much  detested  as  that  of  Sextus  Tar- 
quinius.  This  elder  Appius  had  been  Consul  more  than 
seventy  years  before  the  introduction  of  the  Licinian  laws. 
By  availing  himself  of  a  singular  crisis  in  public  feeling, 
he  had  obtained  the  consent  of  the  Commons  to  the  aboli- 
tion of  the  Tribuneship,  and  had  been  the  chief  of  that 
Council  of  Ten  to  which  the  whole  direction  of  the  State 
had  been  committed.  In  a  few  months  his  administration 
had  become  universally  odious.  It  had  been  swept  away 
by  an  irresistible  outbreak  of  popular  fury ;  and  its  memory 
was  still  held  in  abhorrence  by  the  whole  city.  The  imme- 
diate cause  of  the  downfall  of  this  execrable  government 
was  said  to  have  been  an  attempt  made  by  Appius  Claudius 
upon  the  chastity  of  a  beautiful  young  girl  of  humble  birth. 
The  story  ran  that  the  Decemvir,  unable  to  succeed  by 
bribes  and  solicitations,  resorted  to  an  outrageous  act  of 
tyranny.  A  vile  dependent  of  the  Claudian  house  laid 
claim  to  the  damsel  as  his  slave.  The  cause  was  brought 
before  the  tribunal  of  Appius.  The  wicked  magistrate,  in 
defiance  of  the  clearest  proofs,  gave  judgment  for  the  claim- 
ant. But  the  girl's  father,  a  brave  soldier,  saved  her  from 
*  In  the  year  of  the  city  282. 


106  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT    ROME. 

servitude  and  dishonour  by  stabbing  her  to  the  heart  in  the 
sight  of  the  whole  Forurn.  That  blow  was  the  signal  for  a 
general  explosion.  Camp  and  city  rose  at  once ;  the  Ten 
were  pulled  down ;  the  Tribuneship  was  re-established ;  and 
Appius  escaped  the  hands  of  the  executioner  only  by  a  vol- 
untary death. 

It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  a  story  so  admirably 
adapted  to  the  purposes  both  of  the  poet  and  of  the  dema- 
gogue would  be  eagerly  seized  upon  by  minstrels  burning 
with  hatred  against  the  Patrician  order,  against  the  Clau- 
dian  house,  and  especially  against  the  grandson  and  name- 
sake of  the  infamous  Decemvir. 

In  order  that  the  reader  may  judge  fairly  of  these  frag- 
ments of  the  lay  of  Virginia,  he  must  imagine  himself  a 
Plebeian  who  has  just  voted  for  the  re-election  of  Sextius  and 
Licinius.  All  the  power  of  the  Patricians  has  been  exerted 
to  throw  out  the  two  great  champions  of  the  Commons. 
Every  Posthumius,  iEmilius,  and  Cornelius  has  used  his  in- 
fluence to  the  utmost.  Debtors  have  been  let  out  of  the 
workhouses  on  condition  of  voting  against  the  men  of  the 
people  :  clients  have  been  posted  to  hiss  and  interrupt  the 
favourite  candidates :  Appius  Claudius  Crassus  has  spoken 
with  more  than  his  usual  eloquence  and  asperity :  all  has 
been  in  vain ;  Licinius  and  Sextius  have  a  fifth  time  carried 
all  the  tribes :  work  is  suspended :  the  booths  are  closed : 
the  Plebeians  bear  on  their  shoulders  the  two  champions 
of  liberty  through  the  Forum.  Just  at  this  moment  it  is 
announced  that  a  popular  poet,  a  zealous  adherent  of  the 
Tribunes,  has  made  a  new  song  which  will  cut  the  Claudian 
nobles  to  the  heart.  The  crowd  gathers  round  him,  and 
calls  on  him  to  recite  it.  He  takes  his  stand  on  the  spot 
where,  according  to  tradition,  Virginia,  more  than  seventy 
years  ago,  was  seized  by  the  pandar  of  Appius,  and  he 
begins  his  story. 


VIKGINIA 


FRAGMENTS  OF  A  LAY  SUNG  IN  THE  FORUM  ON  THE  DAY  WHEREON 
LUCIUS  SEXTIUS  LATERANUS  AND  CAIUS  LICINIUS  CALVUS  STOLO 
WERE  ELECTED  TRIBUNES  OF  THE  COMMONS  THE  FIFTH  TIME,  IN 
THE    TEAR    OF    THE    CITY    CCCLXXXII. 


Ye  good  men  of  the  Commons,  with  loving  hearts  and  true, 
Who  stand  by  the  bold  Tribunes  4  that  still  have  stood  by 

you, 

Come,  make  a  circle  round  me,  and  mark  my  tale  with  care, 
A  tale  of  what  Eome  once  hath  borne,  of  what  Home  yet 

may  bear. 
This  is  no  Grecian  fable,  of  fountains  running  wine,5  5 

Of  maids  with  snaky  tresses,6  or  sailors  turned  to  swine.7 
Here,  in  this  very  Forum,  under  theaioonday  sun, 
In  the  sight  of  all  the  people,  the  bloody  deed  was  done. 
Old  men  still  creep  among  us  who  saw  that  fearful  day, 
Just  seventy  years  and  seven  ago,  when  the  wicked  Ten8 

bare  sway.  10 

Of  all  the  wicked  Ten  still  the  names  are  held  accursed, 
And  of  all  the  wicked  Ten  Appius  Claudius  was  the  worst. 
He  stalked  along  the  Forum  like  King  Tarquin9  in  his  pride : 
Twelve  axes  10  waited  on  him,  six  marching  on  a  side  ; 
The  townsmen  shrank  to  right  and  left,  and  eyed  askance 
with  fear  15 

His  lowering  brow,  his  curling  mouth,  which  always  seemed 
to  sneer : 

107 


108  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT    ROME. 

That  brow  of  hate,  that  mouth  of  scorn,  marks  all  the  kin- 
dred still ; 

For  never  was  there  Claudius  yet  but  wished  the  Commons 
ill: 

Nor  lacks  he  fit  attendance ;  for  close  behind  his  heels, 

With  outstretched  chin  and  crouching  pace,  the  client n  Mar- 
cus steals,  20 

His  loins  girt  up  to  run  with  speed,  be  the  errand  what  it 
may, 

And  the  smile  flickering  on  his  cheek,  for  aught  his  lord  may 
say. 

Such  varlets  pimp  and  jest  for  hire  among  the  lying  Greeks, 

Such  varlets  still  are  paid  to  hoot  when  brave  Licinius 
speaks. 

Where'er  ye  shed  the  honey,  the  buzzing  flies  will  crowd;  25 

Where'er  ye  fling  the  carrion,  the  raven's  croak  is  loud ; 

Where'er  down  Tiber  garbage  floats,  the  greedy  pike  ye 
see; 

And  wheresoe'er  such  lord  is  found,  such  client  still  will  be. 

Just  then,  as  through  one  cloudless   chink   in  a  black, 

stormy  sky, 
Shines  out  the  dewy  morning-star,  a  fair  young  girl  came 

by.  30 

With  her  small  tablets 12  in  her  hand,  and  her  satchel  on  her 

arm, 
Home  she  went  bounding  from  the  school,  nor  dreamed  of 

shame  or  harm ; 
And  past  those  dreaded  axes  she  innocently  ran, 
With  bright,  frank  brow  that  had  not  learned  to  blush  at 

gaze  of  man ; 
And  up  the  Sacred  Street 1S  she  turned,  and,  as  she  danced 

along,  35 

She  warbled  gaily  to  herself  lines  of  the  good  old  song, 
How  for  a  sport  the  princes  came  spurring  from  the  camp, 


VIRGINIA.  109 

And  found  Lucrece,14  combing  the  fleece,  under  the  midnight 

lamp. 
The  maiden  sang  as  sings  the  lark,  when  up  he  darts  his 

flight, 
From  his  nest  in  the  green  April  corn,  to  meet  the  morning 

light ;  40 

And  Appius  heard  her  sweet  young  voice,  and  saw  her  sweet 

young  face, 
And  loved  her  with  the  accursed  love  of  his  accursed  race, 
And  all  along  the  Forum,  and  up  the  Sacred  Street, 
His  vulture  eye  pursued  the  trip  of  those  small  glancing  feet. 

Over  the  Alban  mountains 15  the  light  of  morning  broke :  45 
From  all  the   roofs  of  the   Seven  Hills16  curled  the  thin 

wreaths  of  smoke : 
The  city  gates  were  opened ;  the  Forum  all  alive  17 
With  buyers  and  with  sellers  was  humming  like  a  hive : 
Blithely  on  brass  and  timber  the  craftsman's  stroke  was 

ringing,  49 

And  blithely  o'er  her  panniers  the  market-girl  was  singing, 
And  blithely  young  Virginia  came  smiling  from  her  home : 
Ah !  woe  for  young  Virginia,  the  sweetest  maid  in  Borne  ! 
With  her  small  tablets  in  her  hand,  and  her  satchel  on  her 

arm, 
Forth  she  went  bounding  to  the  school,  nor  dreamed  of  shame 

or  harm. 
She  crossed  the  Forum  shining  with  stalls  in  alleys  gay,    55 
And  just  had  reached  the  very  spot  whereon  I  stand  this 

day, 
When  up  the  varlet  Marcus  came ;    not  such  as  when  ere- 

while 
He  crouched  behind  his  patron's  heels  with  the  true  client 

smile : 
He   came  with   lowering   forehead,    swollen   features,   and 

clenched  fist, 


110  LAYS    OF    AXCIENT   HOME. 

And  strode  across  Virginia's  path,  and  caught  her  by  the 

"wrist.  CO 

Hard  strove  the  frighted  maiden,  and  screamed  with  look 

aghast ; 
And  at  her  scream  from  right  and  left  the  folk  came  run- 
ning fast ; 
The  money-changer  Crispus,  with  his  thin  silver  hairs, 
And  Hanno  from  the  stately  booth  glittering  with  Punic lb 

wares, 
And  the  strong  smith  Muraena,  grasping  a  half-forged  brand, 
And  Yolero  the  flesher,  his  cleaver  in  his  hand,  06 

All  came  in  wrath  and  wonder ;  for  all  knew  that  fair  child ; 
And,  as  she  passed  them  twice  a  day,  all  kissed  their  hands 

and  smiled ; 
And  the  strong  smith  Muraena  gave  Marcus  such  a  blow, 
The  caitiff  reeled  three  paces  back,  and  let  the  maiden  go.  70 
Yet  glared  he  fiercely  round  him,  and  growled  in  harsh,  fell 

tone, 
"  She's  mine,  and  I  will  have  her  :  I  seek  but  for  mine  own : 
She  is  my  slave,  born  in  my  honse,  and  stolen  away  and 

sold, 
The  year  of  the  sore  sickness,19  ere  she  was  twelve  hours 

old. 
'Twas  in  the  sad  September,  the  month  of  wail  and  fright,  75 
Two  augurs  were  borne  forth  that  morn ;   the  Consul  died 

ere  night. 
I  wait  on  Appius  Claudius,  I  waited  on  his  sire: 
Let  him  who  works  the  client  wrong  beware  the  patron's 

ire ! " 

So  spake  the  varlet  Marcus ;  and  dread  and  silence  came 

On  all  the  people  at  the  sound  of  the  great  Claudian  name. 

For  then  there  was  no  Tribune  to  speak  the  word  of  might, 

Which  makes  the  rich  man  tremble,  and  guards  the  poor 

man's  right.  82 


VIRGINIA.  111 

There  was  no  brave  Licinius,  no  honest  Sextius  then  ; 
But  all  the  city,  in  great  fear,  obeyed  the  wicked  Ten. 
Yet  ere  the  varlet  Marcus  again  might  seize  the  maid,        85 
Who  clung  tight  to  Muraena's  skirt,  and  sobbed,  and  shrieked 

for  aid. 
Forth  through  the  throng  of  gazers  the  young  Icilius  pressed, 
And  stamped  his  foot,  and  rent  his  gown,  and  smote  upon 

his  breast. 
And  sprang  upon  that  column,  by  many  a  minstrel  sung, 
Whereon  three  mouldering  helmets,  three  rusting  swords. 

are  hung.20  90 

And  beckoned  to  the  people,  and  in  bold  voice  and  clear 
Poured   thick   and   fast  the  burning  words   which  tyrants 

quake  to  hear. 

"Xow.  by  your  children's  cradles,  now  by  your  fathers' 

graves. 
Be  men  to-day,  Quirites,21  or  be  for  ever  slaves  ! 
For  this  did  Servius22  give  us  laws  ?     For  this  did  Lucrece 

bleed  ?  95 

For  this  was  the  great  vengeance  wrought  on  Tarquiirs  evil 

seed  ?  a 
For  this  did  those  false  sons  make  red  the  axes  of  their 

sire  ?  -4 
For  this  did  Scaevola's  right  hand  hiss  in  the  Tuscan  fire  ?  i5 
Shall  the  vile  fox-earth  awe  the  race  that  stormed  the  lion's 

den  ? 
Shall  we,  who  could  not  brook  one  lord,33  crouch  to  the  wicked 

Ten  ?  100 

Oh  for  that  ancient  spirit  which  curbed  the  Senate's  will! 
Oh  for  the  tents  which  in  old  time  whitened  the  Sacred 

Hill :  * 

In  those  brave  days  our  fathers  stood  firmly  side  by  side ; 
They  faced  the  Marcian28  fury;   they  tamed  the  Fabian" 
pride : 


112  LAYS    OF   ANCIENT    ROME. 

They  drove  the  fiercest  Quinctius30  an  outcast  forth  from 

Rome ;  105 

They  sent  the  haughtiest  Claudius31  with  shivered  fasces32 

home. 
But  what  their  care  bequeathed  us  our  madness  flung  away : 
All  the  ripe  fruit  of  threescore  years  was  blighted  in  a  day. 
Exult,  ye  proud  Patricians  !     The  hard-fought  fight  is  o'er. 
We  strove  for  honours  —  'twas  in  vain:  for  freedom  —  'tis 

no  more.  no 

No  crier  to  the  polling  summons  the  eager  throng ; 
No  Tribune  breathes  the  word  of  might  that  guards  the  weak 

from  wrong. 
Our  very  hearts,  that  were  so  high,  sink  down  beneath  your 

will. 
Riches,  and  lands,  and  power,  and  state  —  ye  have  them :  — 

keep  them  still. 
Still  keep  the  holy  fillets ;  still  keep  the  purple  gown,       115 
The  axes,  and  the  curule  chair,  the  car,  and  laurel  crown 33 : 
Still  press  us  for  your  cohorts,  and,  when  the  fight  is  done, 
Still  fill  your  garners  from  the  soil  which  our  good  swords 

have  won.34 
Still,  like  a  spreading  ulcer,  which  leech-craft  may  not  cure, 
Let  your  foul  usance  eat  away  the  substance  of  the  poor.  120 
Still  let  your  haggard  debtors  bear  all  their  fathers  bore ; 
Still  let  your  dens  of  torment  be  noisome  as  of  yore ; 
No  fire  when  Tiber  freezes ;  no  air  in  dog-star  heat ; 
And  store  of  rods  for  free-born  backs,  and  holes  for  free-born 

feet. 
Heaj3  heavier  still  the  fetters ;  bar  closer  still  the  grate ;  125 
Patient  as  sheep  we  yield  us  up  unto  your  cruel  hate. 
But,  by  the  Shades 35  beneath  us,  and  by  the  Gods  above, 
Add  not  unto  your  cruel  hate  your  yet  more  cruel  love  ! 3a 
Have  ye  not  graceful  ladies,  whose  spotless  lineage  springs 
From  Consuls,   and  High   Pontiffs.37  and  ancient  Alban38 

kings  ?  130 


VIRGINIA.  113 

Ladies,  who  deign  not  on  our  paths  to  set  their  tender  feet, 
"Who  from  their  cars  look  down  with  scorn  upon  the  wonder- 
ing street, 
"Who  in  Corinthian  mirrors  their  own  proud  smiles  behold. 
And  breathe  of  Capuan39  odours,  and  shine  with  Spanish 

gold  ? 4U 
Then  leave  the  poor  Plebeian  his  single  tie  to  life  —  135 

The  sweet,  sweet  love  of  daughter,  of  sister,  and  of  wife, 
The  gentle   speech,  the  balm  for  all   that  his  vexed  soul 

endures, 
The  kiss,  in  which  he  half  forgets  even  such  a  }roke  as  yours. 
Still  let  the  maiden's  beauty  swell  the  father's  breast  with 

pride ; 
Still  let  the  bridegroom's  arms  infold  an  unpolluted  bride. 
Spare  us  the  inexpiable  wrong,  the  unutterable  shame,      m 
That  turns  the  coward's  heart  to  steel,  the  sluggard's  blood 

to  flame, 
Lest,  when  our  latest  hope  is  fled,  ye  taste  of  our  despair, 
And   learn   by  proof,  in   some  wild   hour,  how  much   the 
wretched  dare." 

.  41 

Straightway  Virginius  led  the  maid  a  little  space  aside.   145 
To  where  the  reeking  shambles  stood,  piled  up  with  horn 

and  hide, 
Close  to  yon  low  dark  archwa}^,  where,  in  a  crimson  flood, 
Leaps  down  to  the  great  sewer42  the  gurgling  stream  of  blood. 
Hard  by,  a  flesher  on  a  block  had  laid  his  whittle  down ; 
Virginius  caught  the  whittle  up,  and  hid  it  in  his  gown.    150 
And  then  his  eyes  grew  very  dim,  and  his  throat  began  to 

swell, 
And  in  a  hoarse,  changed  voice  he  spake,  "  Farewell,  sweet 

child !     Farewell ! 
Oh !  how  I  loved  my  darling !     Though  stern  I  sometimes 

be, 


114  LAYS    OF   ANCIENT    ROME. 

To  thee,  thou  know'st  I  was  not  so.     Who  could  be  so  to 

thee  ?  154 

And  how  my  darling  loved  me !     How  glad  she  was  to  hear 
My  footstep  on  the  threshold  when  I  came  back  last  year ! 
And  how  she  danced  with  pleasure  to  see  my  civic  crown,43 
And   took  my  sword  and  hung  it  up,  and  brought  me  forth 

my  gown ! 
iSow,  all  those  things  are  over  —  yes,  all  thy  pretty  ways, 
Thy  needlework,  thy  prattle,  thy  snatches  of  old  lays ;       160 
And  none  will  grieve  when   I  go  forth,  or  smile  when  I  re- 
turn, 
Or  watch  beside  the  old  man's  bed,  or  weep  upon  his  urn. 
The  house  that  was  the  happiest  within  the  Roman  walls, 
The  house  that  envied  not  the  wealth  of  Capua's  marble 

halls, 
Now,  for  the  brightness  of  thy  smile,  must  have  eternal 

gloom,  165 

And  for  the  music  of  thy  voice,  the  silence  of  the  tomb. 
The  time  is  come.     See  how  he  points  his  eager  hand  this 

way ! 
See  how  his  eyes  gloat  on  thy  grief,  like  a  kite's  upon  the 

prey  ! 
With  all  his  wit,  he  little  deems,  that,  spurned,  betrayed, 

bereft, 
Thy  father  hath  in  his  despair  one  fearful  refuge  left.       170 
He  little  deems  that  in  this  hand  I  clutch  what  still  can 

save 
Thy  gentle  youth  from  taunts  and  blows,  the  portion  of  the 

slave ; 
Yea,  and  from  nameless  evil,  that  passeth  taunt  and  blow  — 
Foul  outrage  which  thou  knowest  not,  which  thou  shalt  never 

know. 
Then  clasp  me  round  the  neck  once  more,  and  give  me  one 

more  kiss ;  175 

And  now,  mine  own  dear  little  girl,  there  is  no  way  but  this." 


VIRGINIA.  115 

With  that  he  lifted  high  the  steel,  and  smote  her  in  the  side, 
And  in  her  blood  she  sank  to  earth,  and  with  one  sob  she 
died. 

Then,  for  a  little  moment,  all  people  held  their  breath ; 
And  through  the  crowded  Forum  was  stillness  as  of  death ; 
And  in  another  moment  brake  forth  from  one  and  all        181 
A  cry  as  if  the  Yolscians44  were  coming  o'er  the  wall. 
Some  with  averted  faces,  shrieking,  fled  home  amain ; 
Some  ran  to  call  a  leech ;  and  some  ran  to  lift  the  slain : 
Some  felt  her  lips  and  little  wrist,  if  life  might  there  be 

found ;  .  185 

And  some  tore  up  their  garments  fast,  and  strove  to  stanch 

the  wound. 
In  vain  they  ran,  and  felt,  and  stanched ;  for  never  truer  blow 
That  good  right  arm  had  dealt  in  fight  against  a  Volscian  foe. 

When  Appius  Claudius  saw  that  deed,  he  shuddered  and 

sank  down, 
And  hid  his  face  some  little  space  with  the  corner  of  his 

gown,  190 

Till,  with  white  lips  and  bloodshot  eyes,  Virginius  tottered 

nigh, 
And  stood  before  the  judgment-seat,  and  held  the  knife  on 

high. 
"  Oh !  dwellers  in  the  nether  gloom,  avengers  of  the  slain,45 
By  this  clear  blood  I  cry  to  you,  do  right  between  us  twain ; 
And  even  as  Appius  Claudius  hath  dealt  by  me  and  mine,  195 
Deal  you  by  Appius  Claudius  and  all  the  Claudian  line ! " 
So  spake  the  slayer  of  his  child,  and  turned,  and  went  his 

way ; 
But  first  he  cast  one  haggard  glance  to  where  the  body  lay, 
And  writhed,  and  groaned  a  fearful  groan,  and  then,  with 

steadfast  feet,  199 

Strode  right  across  the  market-place  unto  the  Sacred  Street. 


116  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT    ROME. 

Then  up  sprang  Appius  Claudius :    "  Stop  him ;  alive  or 

dead! 
Ten  thousand  pounds  of  copper46  to  the  man  who  brings  his 

head." 
He  looked  upon  his  clients;  but  none  would  work  his  will. 
He  looked  upon  his  lictors  ;  but  they  trembled,  and  stood  still. 
And,  as  Virginius   through  the    press   his   way  in   silence 

cleft,  205 

Ever  the  mighty  multitude  fell  back  to  right  and  left. 
And  he  hath  passed  in  safety  unto  his  woeful  home, 
And  there  ta'en  horse  to  tell  the  camp  what  deeds  are  done 

in  Borne. 

By  this  the  flood  of  people  was  swollen  from  every  side, 
And  streets  and  porches  round  were  filled  with  that  overflow- 
ing tide ;  210 
And  close  around  the  body  gathered  a  little  train 
Of  them  that  were  the  nearest  and  dearest  to  the  slain. 
They  brought  a  bier,  and  hung  it  with  many  a  cypress  47 

crown, 
And  gently  they  uplifted  her,  and  gently  laid  her  down. 
The  face  of  Appius  Claudius  wore  the  Claudian  scowl  and 

sneer,  215 

And  in  the  Claudian  note  he  cried,  "  What  doth  this  rabble 

here  ? 
Have  they  no  crafts  to  mind  at  home,  that  hitherward  they 

stray  ? 
Ho!    lictors,  clear  the  market-place,  and  fetch  the  corpse 

away  ! " 
The  voice  of  grief  and  fury  till  then  had  not  been  loud ; 
But  a  deep  sullen  murmur  wandered  among  the  crowd,     220 
Like  the  moaning  noise  that  goes  before  the  whirlwind  on 

the  deep, 
Or  the  growl  of  a  fierce  watch-dog  but  half -aroused  from 

sleep. 


VIRGINIA.  117 

But  when  the  lictors  at   that  word,  tall   yeomen    all    and 

strong, 
Each  with  his  axe  and  sheaf  of  twigs,  went  down  into  the 

throng, 
Those  old  men  say,  who  saw  that  day  of    sorrow  and  of 

sin,  -  225 

That  in  the  Roman  Forum  was  never  such  a  din. 
The  wailing,  hooting,  cursing,  the  howls  of  grief  and  hate, 
Were  heard  beyond  the  Pineian  Hill,48  beyond  the   Latin 

Gate.49 
But  close  around  the  body,  where  stood  the  little  train 
Of  them  that  were  the  nearest  and  dearest  to  the  slain,    230 
Xo  cries  were  there,  but  teeth  set  fast,  low  whispers  and 

black  frowns, 
And  breaking  up  of  benches,  and  girding  up  of  gowns. 
'Twas  well  the  lictors  might  not  pierce  to  where  the  maiden 

lay, 
Else  surely  had  they  been  all  twelve  torn  limb  from  limb 

that  day. 
Eight  glad  they  were  to  struggle  back,  blood  streaming  from 

their  heads,  2:35 

With  axes  all  in  splinters,  and  raiment  all  in  shreds. 
Then  Appius  Claudius  gnawed  his  lip,  and  the  blood  left  his 

cheek ; 
And  thrice  he  beckoned  with  his  hand,  and  thrice  he  strove 

to  speak ; 
And  thrice  the  tossing  Forum  set  up  a  frightful  yell ; 
"  See,  see,  thou  dog !  what  thou  hast  done ;  and  hide  thy 

shame  in  hell  !  240 

Thou  that  wouldst  make  our  maidens  slaves  must  first  make 

slaves  of  men. 
Tribunes !     Hurrah  for  Tribunes  !     Down  with  the  wicked 

Ten !  " 
And  straightway,  thick  as  hailstones,  came  whizzing  through 

the  air 


118  LAYS    OF   ANCIENT    KOME. 

Pebbles,  and  bricks,  and  potsherds,  all  round  the   curule 

chair :  244 

And  upon  Appius  Claudius  great  fear  and  trembling  came ; 
For  never  was   a   Claudius   yet   brave   against   aught   but 

shame. 
Though  the  great  houses  love  us  not,  we  own,  to  do  them 

right, 
That  the  great  houses,  all  save  one,  have  borne  them  well  in 

fight. 
Still  Cams  of  Corioli,50  his  triumphs  and  his  wrongs, 
His  vengeance  and  his  mercy,  live  in  our  camp-fire  songs.  250 
Beneath  the  yoke  of  Furius51  oft  have  Gaul  and  Tuscan 

bowed ; 
And  Rome  may  bear  the  pride  of  him  of  whom  herself  is 

proud. 
But  evermore  a  Claudius  shrinks  from  a  stricken  field, 
And  changes  colour  like   a   maid  at   sight   of   sword   and 

shield. 
The   Claudian   triumphs    all   were   Avon   within    the    city 

towers ;  255 

The  Claudian  yoke  was  never  pressed  on  any  neck  but  ours. 
A  Cossus,  like  a  wild  cat,  springs  ever  at  the  face ; 
A  Fabius  rushes  like  a  boar  against  the  shouting  chase ; 
But  the  vile  Claudian  litter,  raging  with  currish  spite, 
Still  yelps  and  snaps  at  those  who  run,  still  runs  from  those 

who  smite.  260 

So  now  'twas  seen  of  Appius.     When  stones  began  to  fly, 
He  shook,  and  crouched,  and  wrung  his  hands,  and  smote 

upon  his  thigh. 
"  Kind  clients,  honest  lictors,  stand  by  me  in  this  fray ! 
Must  I  be  torn  in  pieces  ?     Home,  home,  the  nearest  way  !  " 
While  yet  he  spake,  and  looked  around  with  a  bewildered 

stare,  265 

Four   sturdy  lictors   put   their   necks   beneath   the   curule 

chair ; 


VIRGINIA.  119 

And  fourscore  clients   on   the   left,  and   fourscore   on   the 

right, 
Arrayed  themselves  with  swords  and  staves,  and  loins  girt 

up  for  fight. 
But,  though  without  or  staff  or  sword,  so  furious  was  the 

throng, 
That  scarce  the  train  with  might  and  main  could  bring  their 

lord  along.  270 

Twelve  times  the  crowd  made  at  him ;  five  times  they  seized 

his  gown ; 
Small  chance  was  his  to  rise  again,  if  once  they  got  him 

down : 
And  sharper  came  the  pelting;  and  evermore  the  yell  — 
"  Tribunes  !  we  will  have  Tribunes  !  "  —  rose  with  a  louder 

swell : 
And  the  chair  tossed  as  tosses  a  bark  with  tattered  sail     275 
When  raves  the  Adriatic  beneath  an  eastern  gale, 
When  the  Calabrian  sea-marks52  are  lost  in  clouds  of  spume, 
And  the  great  Thunder-Cape 53  has  donned  his  veil  of  inky 

gloom. 
One  stone  hit  Appius  in  the  mouth,  and  one  beneath  the 

ear ; 
And  ere  he  reached  Mount  Palatine,54  he  swooned  with  pain 

and  fear.  280 

His  cursed  head,  that  he  was  wont   to  hold  so  high  with 

pride, 
Now,  like  a  drunken  man's,  hung  down,  and  swayed  from 

side  to  side ; 
And  when  his  stout  retainers  had  brought  him  to  his  door, 
His  face  and  neck  were  all  one  cake  of  filth  and  clotted-gore. 
As  Appius  Claudius  was  that   day,  so   may  his   grandson 

be !  285 

God  send  Eome  one  such  other  sight,  and  send  me  there  to 

see! 


THE   PROPHECY   OF   CAPYS. 


It  can  hardly  be  necessary  to  remind  any  reader  that, 
according  to  the  popular  tradition,  Eomnlus,  after  he  had 
slain  his  grand-uncle  Amulius,  and  restored  his  grandfather 
Numitor,  determined  to  quit  Alba,  the  hereditary  domain  of 
the  Sylvian  princes,  and  to  found  a  new  city.  The  Gods,  it 
was  added,  vouchsafed  the  clearest  signs  of  the  favour  with 
which  they  regarded  the  enterprise,  and  of  the  high  desti- 
nies reserved  for  the  young  colony. 

This  event  was  likely  to  be  a  favourite  theme  of  the  old 
Latin  minstrels.  They  would  naturally  attribute  the  proj- 
ect of  Eomulus  to  some  divine  intimation  of  the  power  and 
prosperity  which  it  was  decreed  that  his  city  should  attain. 
They  would  probably  introduce  seers  foretelling  the  victories 
of  unborn  Consuls  and  Dictators,  and  the  last  great  victory 
would  generally  occupy  the  most  conspicuous  place  in  the 
prediction.  There  is  nothing  strange  in  the  supposition  that 
the  poet  who  was  employed  to  celebrate  the  first  great  tri- 
umph of  the  Romans  over  the  Greeks  might  throw  his  song 
of  exultation  into  this  form. 

The  occasion  was  one  likely  to  excite  the  strongest  feel- 
ings of  national  pride,  A  great  outrage  had  been  followed 
by  a  great  retribution.  Seven  years  before  this  time,  Lucius 
Posthumius  Megellus,  who  sprang  from  one  of  the  noblest 
houses  of  Borne,  and  had  been  thrice  Consul,  was  sent  am- 
bassador to  Tarentum,  with  charge  to  demand  reparation 
for  grievous  injuries.  The  Tarentines  gave  him  audience 
in  their  theatre,  where  he  addressed  them  in  such  Greek  as 

121 


122  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT    ROME. 

he  could  command,  which,  we  may  well  believe,  was  not 
exactly  such  as  Cineas  would  have  spoken.  An  exquisite 
sense  of  the  ridiculous  belonged  to  the  Greek  character: 
and  closely  connected  with  this  faculty  was  a  strong  pro- 
pensity to  flippancy  and  impertinence.  When  Posthumius 
placed  an  accent  wrong,  his  hearers  burst  into  a  laugh. 
When  he  remonstrated,  they  hooted  him,  and  called  him 
barbarian ;  and  at  length  hissed  him  off  the  stage  as  if  he 
had  been  a  bad  actor.  As  the  grave  Eoman  retired,  a  buf- 
foon who,  from  his  constant  drunkenness,  was  nicknamed 
the  Pint-pot,  came  up  with  gestures  of  the  grossest  inde- 
cency, and  bespattered  the  senatorial  gown  with  filth.  Pos- 
thumius turned  round  to  the  multitude,  and  held  up  the 
gown,  as  if  appealing  to  the  universal  law  of  nations.  The 
sight  only  increased  the  insolence  of  the  Tarentines.  They 
clapped  their  hands,  and  set  up  a  shout  of  laughter  which 
shook  the  theatre.  "  Men  of  Tarentum,"  said  Posthumius, 
"  it  will  take  not  a  little  blood  to  wash  this  gown.?;  * 

Eome,  in  consequence  of  this  insult,  declared  war  against 
the  Tarentines.  The  Tarentines  sought  for  allies  beyond 
the  Ionian  Sea.  Pyrrhus,  King  of  Epirus,  came  to  their 
help  with  a  large  army  ;  and  for  the  first  time,  the  two 
great  nations  of  antiquity  were  fairly  matched  against  each 
other. 

The  fame  of  Greece  in  arms,  as  well  as  in  arts,  was  then 
at  the  height.  Half  a  century  earlier,  the  career  of  Alex- 
ander had  excited  the  admiration  and  terror  of  all  nations 
from  the  Ganges  to  the  Pillars  of  Hercules.  Koyal  houses, 
founded  by  Macedonian  captains,  still  reigned  at  Antioch  and 
Alexandria.  That  barbarian  warriors,  led  by  barbarian  chiefs, 
should  win  a  pitched  battle  against  Greek  valour  guided 
by  Greek  science,  seemed  as  incredible  as  it  would  now  seem 
that  the  Burmese  or  the  Siamese  should,  in  the  open  plain, 
put  to  flight  an  equal  number  of  the  best  English  troops. 

*  Dion.  Hal.  De  Legationibus. 


THE   PROPHECY    OF    CAPYS.  123 

The  Tarentines  were  convinced  that  their  countrymen  were 
irresistible  in  war;  and  this  conviction  had  emboldened 
them  to  treat  with  the  grossest  indignity  one  whom  they 
regarded  as  the  representative  of  an  inferior  race.  Of  the 
Greek  generals  then  living,  Pyrrhus  was  indisputably  the 
first.  Among  the  troops  who  were  trained  in  the  Greek 
discipline,  his  Epirotes  ranked  high.  His  expedition  to 
Italy  was  a  turning-point  in  the  history  of  the  world.  He 
found  there  a  people  who,  far  inferior  to  the  Athenians  and 
Corinthians  in  the  fine  arts,  in  the  speculative  sciences,  and 
in  all  the  refinements  of  life,  were  the  best  soldiers  on  the 
face  of  the  earth.  Their  arms,  their  gradations  of  rank, 
their  order  of  battle,  their  method  of  intrenchment,  were 
all  of  Latin  origin,  and  had  all  been  gradually  brought  near 
to  perfection,  not  by  the  study  of  foreign  models,  but  by 
the  genius  and  experience  of  many  generations  of  great 
native  commanders.  The  first  words  which  broke  from  the 
king,  when  his  practised  eye  had  surveyed  the  Roman  en- 
campment, were  full  of  meaning:  —  "These  barbarians," 
he  said,  "  have  nothing  barbarous  in  their  military  arrange- 
ments." He  was  at  first  victorious  ;  for  his  own  talents 
were  superior  to  those  of  the  captains  who  were  opposed  to 
him ;  and  the  Eomans  were  not  prepared  for  the  onset  of 
the  elephants  of  the  East,  which  were  then  for  the  first  time 
seen  in  Italy  —  moving  mountains,  with  long  snakes  for 
hands. #  But  the  victories  of  the  Epirotes  were  fiercely  dis- 
puted, dearly  purchased,  and  altogether  unprofitable.  At 
length,  Manius  Curius  Dentatus,  who  had  in  his  first  Con- 
sulship won  two  triumphs,  was  again  placed  at  the  head 
of  the  Roman  Commonwealth,  and  sent  to  encounter  the 
invaders.  A  great  battle  was  fought  near  Beneventum. 
Pyrrhus  was  completely  defeated.  He  repassed  the  sea; 
and  the  world  learned,  with  amazement,  that  a  people  had 

*  Anguimamis  is  the  old  Latin  epithet  for  an  elephant.    Lucretius,  ii. 
538,  v.  1302. 


124  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT    ROME. 

been  discovered,  who,  in  fair  fighting,  were  superior  to  the 
best  troops  that  had  been  drilled  on  the  system  of  Parmenio 
and  Antigonus. 

The  conquerors  had  a  good  right  to  exult  in  their  success ; 
for  their  glory  was  all  their  own.  They  had  not  learned 
from  their  enemy  how  to  conquer  him.  It  was  with  their 
own  national  arms,  and  in  their  own  national  battle-array, 
that  they  had  overcome  weapons  and  tactics  long  believed 
to  be  invincible.  The  pilum  and  the  broadsword  had 
vanquished  the  Macedonian  spear.  The  legion  had  broken 
the  Macedonian  phalanx.  Even  the  elephants,  when  the 
surprise  produced  by  their  first  appearance  was  over,  could 
cause  no  disorder  in  the  steady  yet  flexible  battalions  of 
Kome. 

It  is  said  by  Plorus,  and  may  easily  be  believed,  that  the 
triumph  far  surpassed  in  magnificence  any  that  Rome  had 
previously  seen.  The  only  spoils  which  Papirius  Cursor 
and  Fabius  Maximus  could  exhibit  were  flocks  and  herds, 
waggons  of  rude  structure,  and  heaps  of  spears  and  helmets. 
But  now,  for  the  first  time,  the  riches  of  Asia  and  the  arts 
of  Greece  adorned  a  Eoman  pageant.  Plate,  fine  stuffs, 
costly  furniture,  rare  animals,  exquisite  paintings  and 
sculptures,  formed  part  of  the  procession.  At  the  banquet 
would  be  assembled  a  crowd  of  warriors  and  statesmen, 
among  whom  Manius  Curius  Dentatus  would  take  the  high- 
est room.  Caius  Fabricius  Luscinus,  then,  after  two  Con- 
sulships and  two  triumphs,  Censor  of  the  Commonwealth, 
would  doubtless  occupy  a  place  of  honour  at  the  board.  In 
situations  less  conspicuous  probably  lay  some  of  those  who 
were,  a  few  years  later,  the  terror  of  Carthage ;  Caius 
Duilius,  the  founder  of  the  maritime  greatness  of  his  coun- 
try ;  Marcus  Atilius  Regulus,  who  owed  to  defeat  a  renown 
far  higher  than  that  which  he  had  derived  from  his  vic- 
tories ;  and  Caius  Lutatius  Catulus,  who,  while  suffering 
from   a   grievous   wound,  fought   the   great   battle   of   the 


THE   PROPHECY   OF    CAPYS.  125 

JEgates,  and  brought  the  First  Punic  War  to  a  triumphant 
close.  It  is  impossible  to  recount  the  names  of  these  emi- 
nent citizens,  without  reflecting  that  they  were  all,  without 
exception,  Plebeians,  and  would,  but  for  the  ever-memorable 
struggle  maintained  by  Caius  Licinius  and  Lucius  Sextius, 
have  been  doomed  to  hide  in  obscurity,  or  to  waste  in  civil 
broils  the  capacity  and  energy  which  prevailed  against 
Pyrrhus  and  Hamilcar. 

On  such  a  day  we  may  suppose  that  the  patriotic  enthu- 
siasm of  a  Latin  poet  would  vent  itself  in  reiterated  shouts 
of  Io  triumphe,  such  as  were  uttered  by  Horace  on  a  far  less 
exciting  occasion,  and  in  boasts  resembling  those  which 
Virgil  put  into  the  mouth  of  Anchises.  The  superiority  of 
some  foreign  nations,  and  especially  of  the  Greeks,  in  the 
lazy  arts  of  peace,  would  be  admitted  wTith  disdainful  can- 
dour ;  but  pre-eminence  in  all  the  qualities  which  fit  a  people 
to  subdue  and  govern  mankind  wrould  be  claimed  for  the 
Eomans. 

The  following  lay  belongs  to  the  latest  age  of  Latin 
ballad-poetry.  Naevius  and  Livius  Andronicus  were  prob- 
ably among  the  children  whose  mothers  held  them  up  to 
see  the  chariot  of  Curius  go  by.  The  minstrel  who  sang 
on  that  day  might  possibly  have  lived  to  read  the  first 
hexameters  of  Ennius,  and  to  see  the  first  comedies  of  Plau- 
tus.  His  poem,  as  might  be  expected,  shows  a  much  wider 
acquaintance  with  the  geography,  manners,  and  produc- 
tions of  remote  nations,  than  would  have  been  found  in 
compositions  of  the  age  of  Camillus.  But  he  troubles  him- 
self little  about  dates,  and  having  heard  travellers  talk 
with  admiration  of  the  Colossus  of  Rhodes,  and  of  the 
structures  and  gardens  with  which  the  Macedonian  kings 
of  Syria  had  embellished  their  residence  on  the  banks  of 
the  Orontes,  he  has  never  thought  of  inquiring  whether 
these  things  existed  in  the  age  of  Romulus. 


THE   PROPHECY   OF   CAPYS. 

A  LAY  SUNG  AT  THE  BANQUET  IN  THE  CAPITOL,  ON  THE  DAT  WHEREON 
MANIUS  CURIUS  DENTATUS,  A  SECOND  TIME  CONSUL,  TRIUMPHED 
OVER  KING  PYRRHUS  AND  THE  TARENTINES,  IN  THE  YEAR  OF  THE 
CITY    CCCCLXXIX. 


Now  slain  is  King  Amulius,1 

Of  the  great  Sylvian  line, 
Who  reigned  in  Alba  Longa,2 

On  the  throne  of  Aventine.3 
Slain  is  the  Pontiff  Camers,4  5 

Who  spake  the  words  of  doom : 
"  The  children  to  the  Tiber ; 

The  mother  to  the  tomb." 

IT. 

In  Alba's  lake  no  fisher 

His  net  to-day  is  flinging  :  10 

On  the  dark  rind  of  Alba's  oaks 

To-day  no  axe  is  ringing : 
The  yoke  hangs  o'er  the  manger : 

The  scythe  lies  in  the  hay : 
Through  all  the  Alban  villages  15 

No  work  is  done  to-day. 


in. 


And  every  Alban  burgher 

Hath  donned  his  whitest  gown 
126 


THE   PKOPHECY    OF    CAPYS.  127 

And  every  head  in  Alba 

AYearetli  a  poplar  crown 5 ;  20 

And  every  Alban  door-post 

With  boughs  and  flowers  is  gay : 
For  to-day  the  dead  are  living ; 

The  lost  are  found  to-day. 

IV. 

They  were  doomed  by  a  bloody  king :  25 

They  were  doomed  by  a  lying  priest : 
They  were  cast  on  the  raging  flood : 

They  were  tracked  by  the  raging  beast : 
Raging  beast  and  raging  flood 

Alike  have  spared  the  prey ;  30 

And  to-day  the  dead  are  living : 

The  lost  are  found  to-day. 

v. 

The  troubled  river  knew  them, 

And  smoothed  his  }^ellow  foam,6 
And  gently  rocked  the  cradle  35 

That  bore  the  fate  of  Rome. 
The  ravening  she- wolf  knew  them, 

And  licked  them  o'er  and  o'er, 
And  gave  them  of  her  own  fierce  milk, 

Rich  with  raw  flesh  and  gore.  40 

Twenty  winters,  twenty  springs, 

Since  then  have  rolled  away ; 
And  to-day  the  dead  are  living: 

The  lost  are  found  to-day. 

VI. 

Blithe  it  was  to  see  the  twins,  45 

Right  goodly  youths  and  tall, 


128  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT    ROME. 

Marching  from  Alba  Longa 

To  their  old  grandsire's  hall. 
Along  their  path  fresh  garlands 

Are  hung  from  tree  to  tree :  50 

Before  them  stride  the  pipers, 

Piping  a  note  of  glee. 

VII. 

On  the  right  goes  Romulus, 

With  arms  to  the  elbows  red, 
And  in  his  hand  a  broadsword,  55 

And  on  the  blade  a  head  — 
A  head  in  an  iron  helmet, 

With  horse-hair  hanging  down, 
A  shaggy  head,  a  swarthy  head, 

Fixed  in  a  ghastly  frown —  60 

The  head  of  King  Amulius 

Of  the  great  Sylvian  line, 
Who  reigned  in  Alba  Longa, 

On  the  throne  of  Aventine. 

VIII. 

On  the  left  side  goes  Remus,  65 

With  wrists  and  fingers  red, 
And  in  his  hand  a  boar-spear, 

And  on  the  point  a  head  — 
A  wrinkled  head  and  aged, 

With  silver  beard  and  hair,  70 

And  holy  fillets  round  it, 

Such  as  the  pontiffs  wear  — 
The  head  of  ancient  Camers, 

Who  spake  the  words  of  doom : 
"  The  children  to  the  Tiber ;  75 

The  mother  to  the  toinb." 


THE    PROPHECY    OF    CAPYS.  129 


IX. 

Two  and  two  behind  the  twins 

Their  trusty  comrades  go, 
Four  and  forty  valiant  men, 

With  club,  and  axe,  and  bow.  80 

On  each  side  every  hamlet 

Pours  forth  its  joyous  crowd, 
Shouting  lads  and  baying  dogs 

And  children  laughing  loud, 
And  old  men  weeping  fondly  85 

As  Rhea's  boys  go  by, 
And  maids  who  shriek  to  see  the  heads, 

Yet,  shrieking,  press  more  nigh. 


So  they  marched  along  the  lake ; 

They  marched  by  fold  and  stall,  90 

By  corn-field  and  by  vineyard, 

Unto  the  old  man's  hall. 


XT. 

In  the  hall-gate  sate  Capys, 

Capys,  the  sightless  seer ; 
From  head  to  foot  he  trembled  95 

As  Romulus  drew  near. 
And  up  stood  stiff  his  thin  white  hair, 

And  his  blind  eyes  flashed  fire : 
"  Hail !  foster  child  of  the  wonderous  nurse  ! 

Hail !  son  of  the  wonderous  sire  !  100 

XII. 

"  But  thou  —  what  dost  thou  here 
In  the  old  man's  peaceful  hall  ? 


130  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT   ROME. 

What  doth  the  eagle  in  the  coop, 

The  bison  in  the  stall  ? 
Our  corn  fills  many  a  garner ;  105 

Our  vines  clasp  many  a  tree ; 
Our  flocks  are  white  on  many  a  hill 

But  these  are  not  for  thee. 

XIII. 

"  For  thee  no  treasure  ripens 

In  the  Tartessian  mine 7 :  110 

For  thee  no  ship  brings  precious  bales 

Across  the  Libyan  brine 8 : 
Thou  shalt  not  drink  from  amber ; 

Thou  shalt  not  rest  on  down 9 ; 
Arabia 10  shall  not  steep  thy  locks,  115 

Nor  Sidon  tinge  thy  gown.11 

XIV. 

Leave  gold  and  myrrh  and  jewels, 

Eich  table  and  soft  bed, 
To  them  who  of  man's  seed  are  born, 

Whom  woman's  milk  have  fed.  120 

Thou  wast  not  made  for  lucre, 

For  pleasure,  nor  for  rest ; 
Thou,  that  art  sprung  from  the  War-god's  loins, 

And  hast  tugged  at  the  she-wolfs  breast. 

xv. 

"  From  sunrise  unto  sunset  125 

All  earth  shall  hear  thy  fame : 
A  glorious  city  thou  shalt  build, 

And  name  it  by  thy  name  : 
And  there,  unquenched  through  ages, 

Like  Vesta's 12  sacred  fire,  130 

Shall  live  the  spirit  of  thy  nurse, 

The  spirit  of  thy  sire. 


THE   PBOPHECY   OF    CAPYS.  181 


XVI. 

"  The  ox  toils  through  the  furrow, 

Obedient  to  the  goad ; 
The  patient  ass,  up  flinty  paths,  135 

Plods  with  his  weary  load : 
With  whine  and  bound  the  spaniel 

His  master's  whistle  hears  ; 
And  the  sheep  yields  her  patiently 

To  the  loud  clashing  shears.  uo 

XVII. 

"  But  thy  nurse  will  hear  no  master ; 

Thy  nurse  will  bear  no  load ; 
And  woe  to  them  that  shear  her, 

And  woe  to  them  that  goad ! 
When  all  the  pack,  loud  baying,  145 

Her  bloody  lair  surrounds, 
She  dies  in  silence,  biting  hard, 

Amidst  the  dying  hounds. 

XVIII. 

"  Pomona 13  loves  the  orchard ; 

And  Liber  u  loves  the  vine  ;  150 

And  Pales 15  loves  the  straw-built  shed 

Warm  with  the  breath  of  kine ; 
And  Venus 16  loves  the  whispers 

Of  plighted  youth  and  maid, 
In  April's  ivory  moonlight  155 

Beneath  the  chestnut  shade. 

XIX. 

"  But  thy  father  loves  the  clashing 
Of  broadsword  and  of  shield  : 


132  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT    ROME. 

He  loves  to  drink  the  steam  that  reeks 

From  the  fresh  battle-field  ;  160 

He  smiles  a  smile  more  dreadful 
Than  his  own  dreadful  frown, 

When  he  sees  the  thick  black  cloud  of  smok3 
Go  up  from  the  conquered  town. 

xx. 

"  And  such  as  is  the  War-god,  165 

The  author  of  thy  line, 
And  such  as  she  who  suckled  thee, 

Even  such  be  thou  and  thine. 
Leave  to  the  soft  Campanian 

His  baths  and  his  perfumes  ;  170 

Leave  to  the  sordid  race  of  Tyre 

Their  dyeing-vats  and  looms : 
Leave  to  the  sons  of  Carthage 

The  rudder  and  the  oar : 
Leave  to  the  Greek  his  marble  Nymphs  175 

And  scrolls  of  wordy  lore. 

XXI. 

"  Thine,  Roman,  is  the  pilum  17 : 

Roman,  the  sword  is  thine, 
The  even  trench,  the  bristling  mound,18 

The  legion's  ordered  line  19;  180 

And  thine  the  wheels  of  triumph,20 

Which  with  their  laurelled  train 
Move  slowly  up  the  shouting  streets 

To  Jove's  eternal  fane. 

XXII. 

"  Beneath  thy  yoke  the  Volscian  185 

Shall  vail  his  lofty  brow ; 


THE   PROPHECY    OF    CAPYS.  133 

Soft  Capua's  curled  revellers 21 

Before  thy  chairs  shall  bow : 
The  Lucumoes  of  Arnus 22 

Shall  quake  thy  rods  to  see ;  190 

And  the  proud  Samnite's  heart  of  steel23 

Shall  yield  to  only  thee. 

XXIII. 

"The  Gaul  shall  come  against  thee 

From  the  land  of  snow  and  night : 
Thou  shalt  give  his  fair-haired  armies  195 

To  the  raven  and  the  kite. 

XXIV. 

u.  The  Greek  shall  come  against  thee, 

The  conqueror  of  the  East. 
Beside  him  stalks  to  battle 

The  huge  earth-shaking  beast/4  200 

The  beast  on  whom  the  castle 

With  all  its  guards  doth  stand, 
The  beast  who  hath  between  his  eyes 

The  serpent  for  a  hand. 
First  march  the  bold  Epirotes,  205 

Wedged  close  with  shield  and  spear  K 
And  the  ranks  of  false  Tarentum 

Are  glittering  in  the  rear. 

XXV. 

"  The  ranks  of  false  Tarentum 

Like  hunted  sheep  shall  fly :  210 

In  vain  the  bold  Epirotes 

Shall  round  their  standards  die 
And  Apennines  grey  vultures 

Shall  have  a  noble  feast 
On  the  fat  and  the  eyes  215 

Of  the  huge  earth-shaking  beast. 


134  LAYS    OF    ANCIENT    ROME. 


XXYI. 

"  Hurrah !  for  the  good  weapons 

That  keep  the  War-god's  land. 
Hurrah !  for  Rome's  stout  pilum 

In  a  stout  Roman  hand.  220 

Hurrah  !  for  Rome's  short  broads  word,26 

That  through  the  thick  array 
Of  levelled  spears  and  serried  shields 

Hews  deep  its  gory  way. 

XXVII. 

"  Hurrah  !  for  the  great  triumph  225 

That  stretches  many  a  mile. 
Hurrah  !  for  the  wan  captives 

That  pass  in  endless  file. 
Ho  !  bold  Epirotes,  whither 

Hath  the  Reel  King 27  ta'en  flight  ?  230 

Ho  !  dogs  of  false  Tarentum, 

Is  not  the  gown  washed  white 28  ? 

XXVIII. 

"  Hurrah  !  for  the  great  triumph 

That  stretches  many  a  mile. 
Hurrah  !  for  the  rich  dye  of  Tyre,  235 

And  the  fine  web  of  Nile, 
The  helmets  gay  with  plumage 

Torn  from  the  pheasant's  wings, 
The  belts  set  thick  with  starry  gems 

That  shone  on  Indian  kings,  240 

The  urns  of  massy  silver, 

The  goblets  rough  with  gold, 
The  many-coloured  tablets  bright 

With  loves  and  wars  of  old, 


THE   PROPHECY    OP    CAPYS.  135 

The  stone  that  breathes  and  struggles,  245 

The  brass  that  seems  to  speak ;  — 
Such  cunning  they  who  dwell  on  high 

Have  given  unto  the  Greek. 

XXIX. 

"  Hurrah !  for  Manius  Curius,29 

The  bravest  son  of  Eome,  250 

Thrice  in  utmost  need  sent  forth, 

Thrice  drawn  in  triumph  home. 
Weave,  weave,  for  Manius  Curius 

The  third  embroidered  gown  w  : 
Make  ready  the  third  lofty  car,31  255 

And  twine  the  third  green  crown32; 
And  yoke  the  steeds  of  Bosea33 

With  necks  like  a  bended  bow, 
And  deck  the  bull,  Mevania's ?A  bull, 

The  bull  as  white  as  snow.  260 

XXX. 

"  Blest  and  thrice  blest  the  Roman 

Who  sees  Rome's  brightest  day, 
Who  sees  that  long  victorious  pomp 

Wind  down  the  Sacred  Way,35 
And  through  the  bellowing  Forum,  265 

And  round  the  Suppliant's  Grove,36 
Up  to  the  everlasting  gates 

Of  Capitolian  Jove. 

XXXI. 

"  Then  where,  o'er  two  bright  havens, 

The  towers  of  Corinth  frown 37 ;  270 

Where  the  gigantic  King  of  Day  ^ 
On  his  own  Rhodes  looks  down ; 


136  LAYS    OF   ANCIENT   ROME. 

Where  soft  Orontes  murmurs 

Beneath  the  laurel  shades 39 ; 
Where  Nile  reflects  the  endless  length  275 

Of  dark-red  colonnades  40 ; 
Where  in  the  still  deep  water, 

Sheltered  from  waves  and  blasts, 
Bristles  the  dusky  forest 

Of  Byrsa's 41  thousand  masts ;  280 

Where  fur-clad  hunters  wander 

Amidst  the  northern  ice ; 
Where  through  the  sand  of  morning-land 

The  camel  bears  the  spice 42 ; 
Where  Atlas  43  flings  his  shadow  285 

Ear  o'er  the  western  foam, 
Shall  be  great  fear  on  all  who  hear 

The  mighty  name  of  Koine." 


NOTES. 


HORATIUS. 

1.  "  The  year  of  the  city  ccclx  "  =  393  b.c. 

2.  "Lars  Porsena."  "Lar"  is  the  Latin  word  (derived  from  the 
Etruscan),  indicating  one  of  a  class  of  minor  divinities  who  were  either 
family  gods  of  the  hearth  or  public  patrons  of  roads,  streets,  and  even 
cities.  They  were  not  of  divine  origin,  but  the  deified  souls  of  men, 
and,  in  the  case  of  family  lares,  of  deceased  ancestors.  It  was  more  or 
less  customary  throughout  the  ancient  world  to  assume  or  endeavor  to 
anticipate  a  coming  apotheosis  in  the  case  of  rulers,  and  this  was  done 
sometimes  indirectly  by  attributing  the  divine  quality  by  means  of  a 
title  or  name,  sometimes  in  terms  by  the  direct  flattery  of  courtiers 
and  subjects.  So  wTe  find  several  of  the  Roman  emperors  legally 
deified  and  worshipped  during  their  lives,  and  doubtless  the  Etruscan 
"  Lars  "  was  used  in  this  sense,  as  the  name  or  title  of  king  or  priest, 
offices  apt  to  be  held  by  the  same  person  in  the  early  Italian  commu- 
nities. "Lars  Porsena"  maybe  thus  freely  rendered.  '-The  Divine 
Porsena." 

3.  "  Clusiuni"  occupied  the  site  of  the  modern  Chiusi. 

4.  '-The  Nine  Gods."  The  Dei  novensiles  of  Etruscan  theology 
were  those  who  had  the  power  to  launch  lightning  and  thunderbolts. 
They  were  Jupiter  (Tinia),  Juno  (Cupra  or  Uni),  Minerva  (Menrfa), 
Vejovis  (an  evil  Jupiter),  Summanus  (god  of  night),  Vulcanus 
(Sethlan  or  Velch),  Saturnus,  Mars  (Maris),  and  a  ninth  wmo  has  not 
been  satisfactorily  identified,  but  was  probably  Neptunus  (Xethuns), 
Janus,  or  Hercules  (Ercle  or  Hercle). 

5.  "The  great  house  of  Tarquin."  The  legendary  history  of  the 
house  of  Tarquin  is  told  by  Livy,  Book  T,  Chaps.  35-60.  Being  them- 
selves of  Etruscan  descent,  they  naturally  appealed  to  the  Etruscans 
for  aid. 

6.  "  Volaterrse,"  now  Volterra.  Much  of  the  ancient  wall  is  still 
standing,  and  shows  a  height  of  forty  feet,  a  thickness  of  thirteen  feet, 
and  a  circumference  of  four  and  a  half  miles.     The  strength  of  the 

137 


138  NOTES. 

town  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  it  withstood  for  two  years  a 
siege  by  Sulla's  troops.  It  was  quite  customary  to  attribute  such 
works  to  a  superhuman  agency. 

7.  "  Seagirt  Populonia."  The  site  of  Populonia,  not  far  from  the 
modern  Piombino,  is  now  occupied  by  a  poor  village. 

8.  "Pisee,"  now  Pisa. 

9.  "  Massilia's  triremes."  Massilia,  now  Marseilles,  was  a  flour- 
ishing Greek  colony  founded  about  600  b.c.  It  was  very  prominent 
commercially  and  strong  enough  to  contend  with  Carthage  in  naval 
warfare.  Gallic  slaves  may  be  readily  assumed  to  have  been  one  of 
its  leading  exports.  The  trireme,  or  galley  with  three  banks  of  oars, 
was  the  "  ship-of-the-line  "  of  the  period. 

10.  "Sweet  Clanis."  The  Clanis  is  now  the  Chiana,  which  joins 
the  Paglia  at  Orvieto  and  flows  thence  into  the  Tiber. 

11.  "Cortona"  still  stands  upon  its  hill  (2170  feet),  looking  down 
upon  the  valley  of  the  Chiana. 

12.  "  Auser's  rill."  The  Auser  (or  Ausar)  rose  in  the  Apennines 
on  the  border  of  Liguria  and  flowed  into  the  Arnus  at  Pisse.  It  is 
identified  with  the  modern  Serchio,  though  the  latter  empties  into  the 
Mediterranean  Sea  some  distance  north  of  the  Arno.  A  new  channel 
is  supposed  to  have  formed. 

13.  "  The  Ciminian  hill."  Mount  Cimeno,  near  Viterbo,  was  once 
considered  the  great  natural  bulwark  of  central  Etruria. 

14.  "  Clitumnus."  The  Clitumnus,  now  the  Clitumno,  rises  near 
the  little  village  of  Le  Vene  between  Trevi  and  Spoleto.  A  sacred 
river,  the  white  cattle  bred  upon  its  banks  were  especially  esteemed 
for  sacrificial  purposes.  Even  now  the  people  of  the  neighborhood 
imagine  that  its  water  has  the  magic  attribute  of  turning  cattle  white. 
For  a  charming  description  see  Pliny's  letter  to  Pomanus,  VIII,  8. 

15.  "The  Volsinian  mere,"  now  the  famous  Lago  di  Bolsena. 

16.  "  Arretium,"  now  Arezzo. 

17.  "Umbro."  The  Uinbro,  now  the  Ombrone,  flows  from  near 
Siena  southwesterly  into  the  sea. 

18.  "Luna."  The  ruins  of  Luna  lie  on  the  coast  not  far  from 
Spezzia,  and  a  few  miles  east  of  Pta.  Bianca. 

19.  "Traced  from  the  right  on  linen  white."  Contrary  to  the 
Roman  system  the  Etruscan  wrote  from  right  to  left — a  strong  indi- 
cation of  their  Oriental  origin.  Their  sacred  books  were  numerous 
and  are  referred  to  by  different  writers  of  antiquity  as  Libri  Etrusci 
—  Chartce  Etruscce  —  Scripta  Etrusca  —  Tusci  libelli —  Etniscce  clisci- 
plinoe  libri  —  Libri  fatal es,  rituales,  haruspicini,  fulgurates  ettonitru- 


NOTES.  139 

ales  —  Libri    Tagetici  —  Sacra  Tagetica  —  Sacra  Acherortiica  —  and 

Libri  Acherontici.  They  are  supposed  to  have  been  written  by  or  taken 
down  from  the  lips  of  Tages,  a  being  possessed  of  the  face  of  a  child 
but  the  wisdom  of  a  sage,  who  was  ploughed  up  in  a  field  near  Tar- 
quinii.  Cicero  on  Divinations,  II,  23.  See  also  for  books  of  divination, 
Cicero  on  Divinations,  1, 12,  33,  43,  and  44  ;  II,  54.  Linen  was  written 
upon  in  early  times,  but  probably  only  in  case  of  sacred  writings  or 
state  records.     See  Livy  IV,  7. 

20.  ' '  Nurscia's  altars."  This  name  is  not  familiar,  though  no  doubt 
Macaulay  had  authority  for  the  spelling.  The  allusion  is  probably  to 
Nortia,  the  Etruscan  goddess  of  fortune,  at  whose  temple  at  Volsinii 
a  nail  was  driven  to  record  the  passage  of  each  year. 

21.  "  The  golden  shields  of  Home."  The  Ancilia  were  the  twelve 
bronze  (or  golden?)  shields  that  hung  in  the  temple  of  Mars  Gradivus 
on  the  Palatine  Hill.  One  was  supposed  to  have  fallen  from  heaven, 
and  the  soothsayers  had  declared  that  so  long  as  it  remained  in  Rome 
the  state  would  endure.  JSunia  Pompilius,  the  then  reigning  king, 
thereupon  had  eleven  others  made  exactly  like  it  to  lessen  the  chance 
of  its  being  stolen,  and  constituted  a  college  of  twelve  priests,  the  salii, 
whose  duty  it  was  to  guard  it.     See  Ovid's  '-Fasti,''  III,  377. 

22.  "Sutrium."     The  modern  Sutri. 

23.  "The  Tusculan  Mamilius."  Octavius  Mamilius  was  son-in-law 
of  King  Tarquin,  who  had  endeavored  during  his  reign  to  attach  to  his 
interests  many  of  the  chief  men  of  the  Latins.  Tusculum,  now  only 
a  few  ruins,  stood  near  the  modern  Frascati,  and  was  one  of  the  most 
important  of  the  Latin  cities.  It  was  fabled  to  have  been  founded  by 
Telegonus,  son  of  Ulysses  and  Circe,  and  was  the  birthplace  of  the 
elder  Cato  and  the  favorite  residence  of  Cicero  (note  his  "Tusculan 
Disputations  "). 

24.  "The  yellow  Tiber."  The  color  of  the  Tiber  is  due  to  the 
swiftness  of  the  current  that  sweeps  down  and  holds  in  suspension 
many  particles  of  earth  and  clay. 

25.  "The  spacious  champaign.1'  The  Roman  Campagna  may  be 
said  to  be  the  plain  bounded  on  the  north  by  the  Ciminian  forest, 
on  the  south  by  the  Alban  Hills,  on  the  east  by  the  Sabine  Apennines, 
and  on  the  west  by  the  sea, 

26.  "Skins  of  wine."  The  early  method  of  keeping  and  carrying 
the  cheaper  grades  of  wine  was  in  sacks  or  bottles  made  of  the  skins 
of  animals,  and  the  poorer  wines  of  Spain  and  Greece  are  still  kept  in 
"  skins." 

27.  "The  rock  Tarpeian."     The  Tarpeian  Rock,  from  which  con- 


140  KOTES. 

demned  traitors  were  thrown  in  early  days,  was  presumably  the  high- 
est point  of  the  Capitoline  Hill.  The  formation  has  changed  very 
much  and,  though  the  spot  is  still  pointed  out,  its  alleged  location  is 
not  considered  beyond  suspicion. 

28.  4i  The  Fathers  of  the  City."  The  Fathers  were  the  three  hun- 
dred senators,  heads  of  the  three  hundred  families  of  the  three  tribes, 
those  of  the  last  admitted  tribe,  the  Luceres,  being  known  as  the 
patres  minorum  gentium.  After  the  institution  of  the  republic, 
vacancies  which  had  occurred  in  the  senate,  either  by  the  killing  of 
obnoxious  senators  by  Tarquin,  or  by  the  departure  of  those  who 
accompanied  him  into  exile,  were  filled  by  certain  chosen  plebeians  of 
equestrian  rank,  who,  because  they  were  enrolled  with  the  others,  were 
known  as  conscripti.  Hence  the  senate  was  called  Patres  et  conscripti, 
shortened  into  Patres  conscripti,  "  Conscript  fathers." 

29.  "  Crustumerium,"  a  colony  from  Alba,  is  supposed  to  have 
been  situated  in  the  mountains  near  the  sources  of  the  Allia  (now  the 
Aia  or  Fosso  clella  Bettina).  It  was  captured  by  Romulus  and  again 
by  Tarquinius  Priscus. 

30.  "Ostia,"  founded  by  Ancus  Marcius  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Tiber,  was  the  ancient  seaport  of  Rome.  It  is  now  about  two  and  a 
half  miles  from  the  coast,  in  consequence  of  the  vast  quantity  of  sand, 
earth,  etc.,  carried  down  and  deposited  by  the  river. 

31.  "  Janiculum,"  now  known  as  the  Monte  Gianicolo,  was  the 
heights  on  the  western  bank  of  the  Tiber,  first  fortified  and  connected 
with  the  city  by  Ancus  Marcius.  A  white  banner  floated  from  its  top, 
and  was  lowered  only  when  an  enemy  came  in  sight,  to  warn  the 
burghers  of  the  threatened  attack. 

32.  "  The  Consul."  Two  consuls  (first  called  praetors),  elected  each 
year,  administered  the  Roman  government,  being  vested  with  all  the 
civil  and  military  prerogatives  of  the  kings,  except  that  of  high-priest  of 
the  state.     They  presided  alternately  for  a  month  at  a  time. 

33.  "The  River-Gate."  It  is  probable  that  there  were  originally 
two  gates  where  the  walls  approached  the  river  bank :  the  Carmen- 
talis  in  the  north  wall,  and  the  Flumentana  in  the  south,  although  this 
is  contrary  to  the  conclusions  of  most  antiquarians,  who  place  the 
Porta  Flumentana  on  the  north  near  the  Porta  Carmentalis,  thus 
locating  two  gates  (not  to  mention  the  special  Porta  Triumphalis  for 
the  use  of  a  triumphing  imperator)  in  the  short  stretch  of  wall  between 
the  river  and  the  Capitoline  Hill.  In  the  south  wall  they  locate  the 
Porta  Trigemina,  from  which  the  wall  ran  unbroken  a  distance  of  over 
half  a  mile  around  the  Aventine  Hill  to  the  Porta  Naevia.     Macaulay 


NOTES.  141 

undoubtedly  places  the  Flumentana  in  the  south  wall  (see  note  60), 
and.  while  there  seems  to  be  no  definite  authority  for  it.  we  may 
imagine  his  reasoning.  But  one  gate  was  needed  on  each  side.  We 
know  the  Carmentalis  was  in  the  north  wall,  and  doubtless  that  gate 
in  the  south  which  was  nearest  the  Tiber  would  be  known  as  the 
Porta  Flumentana  or  u  River-Gate."  Later,  when  the  Carmentalis 
became  a  gate  of  evil  omen,  owing  to  the  Fabii  marching  through  it  on 
their  fatal  expedition  to  Cremera  (see  Macaulay's  Preface),  it  doubtless 
became  necessary  to  build  a  third  gate  even  in  so  short  a  stretch  of 
wall.  People  would  not  use  the  Carmentalis,  and  the  Triumphalis 
could  be  opened  only  for  a  specific  purpose.  Therefore  a  new  "  River- 
Grate"  was  built  close  to  the  Tiber.  Meanwhile  it  is  probable  that 
the  old  "  River-Gate  "  was  an  insufficient  outlet  for  its  district,  and  was 
enlarged  into  a  three-arched  gate,  thence  called  the  Trigemina ;  and  so 
the  name  "  River-Gate"  might  very  naturally  have  shifted  from  the 
southern  to  the  northern  portal.  An  examination  of  a  diagram  of  the 
Servian  wall  at  these  points  will  show  the  force  of  this  explanation, 
and  every  reference  which  has  led  the  classical  authorities  to  the  con- 
clusion that  the  Porta  Flumentana  was  in  the  wall  between  the  Capitol 
and  the  river  is  met  equally  well  by  the  suggested  shifting  of  the 
name. 

3-4.  "The  bridge."  This  was  the  Sublician  Bridge,  which  then 
formed  the  sole  connection  between  the  un walled  river  front  of  the 
city  and  the  interior  of  the  lines  of  wall  which  joined  it  to  the  fortified 
citadel  on  Janiculum.  It  has  been  located  a  little  below  the  sole  re- 
maining pier  of  the  Pons  JEmilius,  where  some  apparent  remains  of  an 
ancient  wooden  bridge  have  been  discovered. 

35.  "Twelve  fair  cities."  Twelve  cities  or  cantons  composed  the 
Etruscan  confederation.  The  number,  however,  was  probably  not  abso- 
lutely fixed,  and  there  were  undoubtedly  changes  in  the  membership. 
At  the  date  of  the  narrative  they  were  probably  Clusium.  Volaterrae, 
Cortona,  Arretium,  Perusia  (now  Perugia),  Tetulonia,  Volsinii,  Tar- 
quinii  (near  the  modern  Corneto),  Caere  (now  Cervetri  and  from 
which  the  word  "  ceremony  "  is  said  to  have  been  derived),  Yeii  (near 
the  modern  village  of  Isola  Farnese),  Yolci,  and  Falerii. 

30.  "  Each  warlike  Lucumo."  "  Lucumo  "  was  a  title  of  nobility, 
or  authority,  sacerdotal  as  well  as  civil.  It  is  said  to  be  derived  from 
the  Etruscan  lauchme,  meaning  "  inspired." 

37.  "  Cilnius  of  Arretium."  Several  of  the  names  of  Macaulay's 
Etruscan  heroes  are  based  merely  on  the  fact  that  they  are  Etruscan 
in  their  derivation.     That  of  Cilnius,  however,  was  evidently  suggested 


142  NOTES. 

by  the  gens  name  of  Caius  Cilnius  Maecenas,  the  friend  of  Augustus 
and  patron  of  literature,  who  was  a  native  of  Arretium. 

38.  "  The  four-fold  shield."     Compare  "  Iliad,"  XVIII,  540-542. 

39.  "  The  hold  by  reedy  Thrasymene."  Probably  Cortona,  which 
lies  about  seven  miles  from  the  Lacus  Trasimenus,  now  Lago  Trasimeno. 

40.  "False  Sextus."  The  story  of  Sextus  Tarquinius  and  his  deed 
and  its  consequences  is  told  by  Livy,  I,  57  et  seq. 

41.  uThe  Captain  of  the  Gate."     See  note  33. 

42.  "  The  holy  maidens."  The  vestal  virgins  who  guarded  the  fire 
that  burned  forever  upon  the  hearth  of  Vesta  were  originally  de- 
rived from  Alba  and  adopted  into  the  Roman  hierarchy  by  Numa.  A 
full  account  of  their  organization,  duties,  privileges,  etc.,  will  be  found 
in  any  dictionary  of  antiquities. 

43.  "  In  yon  strait  path."  The  passage  between  the  two  walls  that 
connected  Janiculum  with  the  bridge. 

44.  "A  Eamnian  proud."  The  Eamnians  (Hamnenses),  so  named 
from  Romulus,  were  the  original  burghers  or  nobles  of  Rome,  and  their 
descendants. 

45.  "Of  Titian  blood."  The  Titians  (Titie?ises) ,  so  called  from 
Titus  Tatius  the  Sabine  leader,  were  the  descendants  of  the  second 
century  of  nobles  chosen  from  the  Sabines  so  as  to  give  each  people 
an  equal  voice  in  the  united  government. 

46.  ' '  Then  lands  were  fairly  portioned. "  Alluding  to  that  most  fruit- 
ful source  of  quarrels  between  the  patricians  and  plebeians  over  the  use 
or  division  of  the  public  or  conquered  land.  All  through  the  early  life 
of  the  Roman  commonwealth  the  proposal  of  an  agrarian  law  was 
the  signal  for  the  gravest  civil  commotions. 

47.  "  Green  Tifernum."  Tifernum  occupied  the  site  of  the  modern 
Citta  di  Castello.     It  was  an  Umbrian  rather  than  Etruscan  town. 

48.  "  Ilva's  mines."  Ilva  was  the  ancient  name  of  Elba.  It  was 
celebrated  for  its  iron  mines. 

49.  Nequinum,  now  Narni ;  and  the  ancient  Xar  is  known  as  the 
Nera.  The  Umbrians,  thought  by  some  to  have  been  the  original  in- 
habitants of  Italy,  seem  to  have  had  no  central  government  like  the 
Latins  and  Etruscans,  and  in  several  wars  we  find  Umbrian  cities 
lighting  on  each  side. 

50.  "  Ocnus  of  Ealerii. "  Falerii  stood  near  the  modern  town  of 
Civita  Castellana. 

51.  "Lausulus  of  Urgo."  Urgo  or  Urgos  has  been  identified  with 
the  little  island  of  Gorgona  not  far  from  Leghorn. 

52.  ' '  Aruns  of  Volsinium . '  *     Volsinium  (or  Volsinii)  is  now  Orvieto. 


NOTES.  143 

53.  "  Cosa's  fen."  The  ruins  of  Cosa,  now  known  as  Ansedonia, 
are  on  the  seacoast  near  Orbetello. 

54.  "  Albinia's  shore.1'  The  Albinia  is  now  known  as  the  Albegna. 
It  flows  southwesterly  into  the  Mediterranean,  just  above  the  marshes 
of  Orbetello. 

55.  "  The  she-wolf's  litter."  In  allusion  to  the  nurturing  of  Romu- 
lus and  Remus.     The  Romans  were  often  called  "  the  wolves  of  Italy." 

56.  "  Mount  Al  vermis."  The  reference  is  doubtless  to  Mount  Alver- 
nia,  upon  which  stands  a  modern  village  of  the  same  name,  about  two 
miles  north  of  Chiusi. 

57.  "And  the  pale  augurs,  muttering  low,  gaze  on  the  blasted  head." 
As  to  occurrences  which  were  considered  subjects  for  augury,  read 
Livy,  XXI.  62  ;   XXII,  1  ;  XXIII,  31,  and  XXIV,  10  and  44. 

58.  "Palatums."  The  Rome  of  Romulus  occupied  only  the  Pala- 
tine Hill.  Later,  after  the  walls  of  Senilis  had  included  the  seven 
hills,  the  Palatine  remained  the  especial  residence  quarter  of  the  great 
patrician  families. 

59.  "Oh,  Tiber  !  father  Tiber  !"  In  the  classical  world,  each  river 
had  its  presiding  deity  of  the  same  name,  whose  worship  was  especially 
cultivated  by  dwellers  upon  its  banks.  Compare  "  Iliad,"  XXI,  242  et 
seq. 

60.  "The  River-Gate."  As  the  swift  current,  running  southward. 
carried  Horatius  outside  the  un walled  stretch  by  the  bridge,  the  River- 
Gate  through  which  Macaulay  makes  him  enter  the  city  must  have 
been  on  the  site  of  the  Porta  Trigemina,     See  note  33. 

61.  "  The  corn-land,  that  was  of  public  right."  The  ager  publicus 
of  Rome  was  land  derived  from  the  conquest  of  other  cities  and 
states.  Owned  by  the  state,  it  was  either  divided  among  colonists, 
rented  out  to  Roman  citizens  on  shares,  or  used  for  common  pasturage. 

62.  "  As  much  as  two  strong  oxen  could  plough  from  morn  till 
night."  The  Roman  unit  of  land  measure  was  the  jugerum  (about 
two-thirds  of  an  acre),  derived  from  the  word  jugum,  a  yoke,  and  sup- 
posed to  represent  the  ploughing  of  a  yoke  of  oxen  in  one  day. 

63.  "  In  the  Comitium."  The  Comitium  was  a  square  space  adjoin- 
ing the  Forum  on  the  north,  and  probably  elevated  above  it  by  a  few 
steps.  Here  were  held  the  comitia,  or  assemblies  of  the  Roman  peo- 
ple.    It  may  be  said  to  have  been  the  patrician  end  of  the  Forum. 

64.  "  To  charge  the  Yolscian  home."  The  Volscians  were  a  peo- 
ple of  southern  Latium  with  whom  the  Romans  were  more  or  less  con- 
tinuously at  war  for  two  hundred  years  from  the  reign  of  Tarquinius 
Superbus. 


144  NOTES. 

65.  "  Wives  still  pray  to  Juno."  Juno  Lucina  was  especially  in- 
voked by  women  looking  forward  to  maternity. 

66.  "  The  good  logs  of  Algidus."  Algidus,  now  Monte  Algido,  is 
the  highest  summit  of  the  Alban  Mountains. 

THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  LAKE  REGILLUS. 

1.  "Ho,  lictors,  clear  the  way!"  The  lictors  were  the  special 
attendants  of  the  consuls  and  dictators,  and  bore  the  emblems  of  su- 
preme civil  authority,  the  axes  bound  in  bundles  of  elm  rods  (secures 
et  fasces),  to  symbolize  the  power  over  life  and  death.  The  usual 
form  of  Roman  execution  was  scourging  and  beheading. 

2.  "  The  Knights  will  ride."  For  information  as  to  the  equestrian 
order,  see  the  Introduction  to  this  poem.  Also,  consult  any  dictionary 
of  classical  antiquities. 

3.  "  Castor  in  the  Eorum."  Three  columns  still  mark  the  site  of 
the  temple  of  Castor  and  Pollux  in  the  Eorum.  They  stand  at  the 
foot  of  the  Palatine  Hill,  near  the  ruins  of  the  temple  of  Yesta. 

4.  "Mars  without  the  wall."  The  temple  of  Mars  stood  upon  a 
small  elevation  beside  the  Appian  Way,  about  half  a  mile  beyond 
the  Porta  Capena. 

5.  "Each  Knight  is  robed  in  purple."  The  knights,  during  the 
ceremony  of  the  Equitum  transvectio  wore  the  trabea,  a  white  gown 
with  horizontal  purple  stripes.  It  was  one  of  the  original  badges  of 
the  kingly  dignity. 

6.  "  The  Yellow  River."     See  "  Horatius,"  note  24. 

7.  "The  Sacred  Hill."  The  allusion  here  is  doubtless  to  the 
Capitoline  Hill,  whereon  stood  the  Capitolium  dedicated  to  Jupiter, 
Juno,  and  Minerva,  rather  than  to  the  Mons  Sacer  mentioned  in 
1 '  Virginia. ' ' 

8.  "The  proud  Ides  of  Quintilis."  The  Ides  of  Quintilis  was 
July  15. 

9.  "Gay  are  the  Martian  Kalends."  On  the  Martian  Kalends, 
March  1,  was  celebrated  the  festival  of  the  Matronalia,  mainly  to  com- 
memorate the  ending  of  the  war  between  the  Romans  and  Sabines 
through  the  intercession  of  the  women.  It  was  the  custom  for 
husbands  to  give  presents  to  their  wives  on  this  day. 

10.  "  December's  Nones  are  gay. "  December's  Nones,  December  5, 
was  the  festival  of  the  Eaunalia  in  honor  of  the  god  Faunus. 

11.  "  The  Great  Twin  Brethren."  Castor  and  Pollux  are  generally 
alluded  to  in  mythology  as  the  sons  of  Leda,  wife  of  Tyndareus  king 


NOTES.  145 

of  Sparta,  and  of  Zeus  disguised  as  a  swan.  More  strictly  speaking,  the 
accepted  myth  is  that,  of  four  children  born  at  a  birth,  Castor  and 
Clytemnestra  were  the  offspring  of  Tyndareus,  and  Pollux  and  Helen 
of  Zeus.  Of  the  so-called  twins,  then,  Pollux  alone  was  immortal,  but 
such  was  his  fraternal  affection  that,  at  his  request,  Zeus  granted  him, 
upon  his  brother's  death,  that  they  should  possess  a  joint  immortality 
on  every  other  day. 

12.  "They  came  o'er  wild  Parthenius.  Mount  Parthenius  rises  on 
the  boundary  between  Argolis  and  Arcadia,  where  it  approaches  the 
Laconian  frontier. 

13.  --O'er  Cirrha's  dome."  Cirrha  in  Phocis  was  the  port  of 
Delphi.     Its  site  is  now  occupied  by  the  miserable  village  of  Magoula. 

14.  "From  where  with  flutes  and  dances."  The  flute  wTas  the 
national  musical  instrument  of  the  Spartans,  and  their  armies  marched 
to  its  strains. 

15.  "The  City  of  two  kings."  Lacedsemon,  or  Sparta,  was  unique 
among  Greek  communities  for  its  double  kingship.  The  nearest  ap- 
proach is  found  in  the  two  consuls  at  Rome. 

16.  "  To  where,  by  Lake  Regillus."     See  Introduction  to  this  poem. 

17.  "  In  the  lands  of  Tusculum."     See  "  Horatius,"  note  23. 

18.  "  Corne's  oaks."  Pliny  speaks  of  a  grove  dedicated  to  Diana  at 
a  place  called  Corne,  "  a  suburban  eminence  of  the  Tusculan  region." 
This  is  the  modern  Cornufelle,  close  by  the  crater  which  once  contained 
the  Lake  Regillus.    See  Gell's  "  Topography  of  Rome  and  its  Vicinity." 

19.  "The  Thirty  Cities"  of  the  Latin  confederacy  were,  according 
to  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  Ardea,  Aricia,  BovillaB,  Bubentum, 
Corniculum,  Carventum,  Cerceii,  Corioli,  Corbio,  Cora.  Fortinii  (?), 
Gabii,  Laurentum,  Lavinium,  Labicum,  Lanuvium,  Nomentum,  Norba, 
Prseneste,  Pedum,  Querquetulum,  Satricum.  Scaptia.  Setia,  Tellense, 
Tibur,  Tusculum,  Toleria,  Tricrinum(?),  and  Velitrae. 

20.  "  Since  last  the  Great  Twin  Brethren 

Of  mortal  eyes  were  seen, 
Have  years  gone  by  an  hundred 
And  fourscore  and  thirteen." 

The  date  of  the  battle  is  supposed  to  have  been  405  b.c. 

21.  "Consul  first  in  place."  See  "Horatius,"  note  32.  There  is 
some  doubt  as  to  whether  the  consul  major  was  the  older  or  the 
one  first  elected  or  the  one  presiding  that  month. 

22.  "Gabii."  A  few  ruins  on  the  banks  of  the  now  drained  Lago 
Castiglione  near  the  Via  Prsenestina,  and  about  nine  miles  from  the 
Porta  Maggiore,  mark  the  site  of  Gabii. 


146  NOTES. 

23.  "  Rome's  Eastern  Gate."  Probably  the  Porta  Esquilina,  which 
stood  near  the  present  site  of  the  arch  of  Gallienus. 

24.  ' '  To  bring  the  Tarquins  home. "  For  the  story  of  the  Tarquins, 
see  Livy,  I,  35-60. 

25.  "Conscript  Fathers."     See  "  Horatius,"  note  28. 

26.  "Then  choose  we  a  Dictator."  For  full  details  of  the  choice 
and  office  of  dictator  consult  dictionary  of  classical  antiquities. 

27.  "Camerium."  Supposed  to  have  occupied  the  site  of  the 
modern  Palombara.  It  was  taken  and  destroyed  by  the  consul 
Yerginius  (502  b.c.)  for  espousing  the  cause  of  the  Tarquins. 
Dionysius,  V,  21,  40,  49. 

28.  "Axes  twenty-four."  The  consuls  being  attended  by  twelve 
lictors  each,  the  dictator,  who  took  over  the  authority  of  both,  was 
attended  by  the  full  twenty-four  bearing  the  axes  and  rods. 

29.  "  He  made  JEbutius  Elva 

His  Master  of  the  Knights." 

The  dictator  usually  nominated  his  magister  eqirftam,  or  lieutenant, 
though  a  name  was  sometimes  suggested  to  him  in  the  decree  of  his 
own  appointment. 

30.  "  Setia's  purple  vineyards."  Setia  is  now  Sezze.  Originally  it 
was  a  town  of  the  Volscians.  It  became  a  Roman  colony  after  382  b.c. 
Its  wine  was  the  imperial  vintage  most  prized  by  Augustus  and  later 
emperors. 

31.  "  Xorba's  ancient  wall."  The  ruins  of  Norba  are  not  far  from 
Ninfa  on  the  road  from  Rome  to  Terracina. 

32.  "  From  where  the  Witch's  Fortress 

O'erhangs  the  dark-blue  seas." 

The  allusion  is  to  Cercii,  of  which  only  a  few  ruins  remain.  The 
promontory  on  which  they  stand,  now  known  as  Promontorio  Circeo 
or  Monte  Cicello,  was  supposed  to  have  been  the  site  of  the  palace  of 
the  enchantress  Circe,  visited  by  Ulysses  in  the  "  Odyssey." 

33.  "  From  the  still,  glassy  lake  that  sleeps 

Beneath  Aricia's  trees." 

The  modern  village  of  Ariccia  stands  where  the  citadel  of  Aricia 
once  stood.  The  ancient  city  lay  a  little  to  the  southward.  It  was 
famous  for  its  temple  of  Diana  Aricina,  situated  in  a  grove  on  the  border 
of  Lake  Nemorensis  (now  Nemi).  Her  priesthood  could  be  attained 
only  by  a  runaway  slave  who  had  been  able  to  challenge  the  former 
incumbent  by  breaking  a  branch  from  a  certain  tree  in  the  grove,  and 


KOTES.  147 

to  kill  him  in  single  combat.     He  then  held  the  office  (of  Bex  Xemo- 
rensis)  until  challenged  and  killed  in  like  manner. 

34.  "The  drear  banks  of  Ufens."  The  Ufens,  now  the  Uffente,  is 
a  small  stream  which  loses  itself  in  the  Pontine  marshes  between  Sezze 
and  Fiperno. 

35.  "Cora,"  now  Cori,  was  fabled  to  have  been  founded  by  the 
Trojan  Dardanus. 

36.  "  The  Laurentian  jungle."  The  few  ruins  of  Laurentum  lie  in 
the  marshes  near  Torre  di  Pater  no. 

37.  "The  green  steeps  whence  Anio  leaps."  The  Anio,  now  the 
Teverone,  rises  in  the  Sabine  Apennines  and  flows  westerly  into  the 
Tiber  a  little  above  Rome. 

38.  "Velitne,"  now  Velletri. 

30.    " Mamilius,  Prince  of  the  Latin  name."    For  Mamilius,  see 

"  Horatius,"  note  23. 

40.  "A  vest  of  purple  flowed, 

Woven  in  the  land  of  sunrise 

By  Syria's  dark -browed  daughters." 

An  allusion  to  the  famous  purple  dye  of  the  Tyrian  weavers. 

41.  "And  by  the  sails  of  Carthage  brought/'  Carthage  divided 
with  Massilia  (Marseilles)  the  commerce  of  the  western  Mediter- 
ranean ;  but  she  gained  steadily  upon  her  rival.  Hence  where  the 
author  of  "Horatius,"  who  is  supposed  to  have  lived  ninety  years 
earlier,  speaks  of  "  Massilia's  triremes,"  the  present  author  uses  "  the 
sails  of  Carthage  "  as  an  equivalent  expression. 

42.  "Lavinium."  About  four  miles  southeast  of  the  ruins  of 
Laurentum  (see  above)  lie  those  of  Lavinium,  named  from  Lavinia, 
the  fabled  daughter  of  King  Latinus,  and  the  wife  of  iEneas.  That  the 
cities  of  the  marsh  and  coast  have  not  lived  again  under  Italianized 
names,  as  have  many  of  their  sisters  of  further  inland,  is  due  to  the 
malaria  that  has  devastated  the  region  for  so  many  centuries.  The 
conditions  are  known  to  have  been  very  different  in  early  times,  when 
the  country  was  well  wooded  and  drained. 

43.  "  False  Sextus."     See  "  Horatius,"  note  40. 

44.  "  Tiber,"  now  Tivoli. 

45.  "Pedum."  The  site  of  Pedum  is  probably  that  now  occupied 
by  the  village  of  Gallicano. 

46.  "Ferentinum  of  the  rock."  Ferentinum  was  an  Etruscan  city. 
Its  ruins  lie  a  little  north  of  Viterbo. 

47.  "There  rode  the  Volscian  succours."     Contrary  to  ancient  ens- 


148  NOTES. 

torn,  the  Latins  have  here  marshalled  their  foreign  allies  in  the  centre 
instead  of  on  the  wings  of  their  array.     See  also  "  Horatius,"  note  64. 

48.  "The  ancient  king."     King  Tarqnin. 

49.  "  White  as  Mount  Soracte."  Mount  Soracte  rises  southeast  of 
Civita  Castellana  on  the  west  bank  of  the  Tiber.  Horace  speaks  of  it 
("  Carin.,"  I,  9)  as  white  with  snow. 

50.  "  On  an  Apulian  steed."  The  best  horses  in  ancient  Italy  came 
from  the  southern  part  of  the  peninsula,  where  the  Greeks  had  doubt- 
less introduced  Asiatic  strains.  The  Campanians  took  especial  pride 
in  their  cavalry. 

51.  "Like  the  Pomptine  fog  at  morn."  The  Pomptine  marshes 
extend  along  the  coast  south  of  Rome  from  Cisterna  to  Terracina. 

52.  "Prom  the  Digentian  rock."  The  allusion  is  probably  to  the 
precipitous  rock  upon  which  the  village  of  Rocca  Giovine  is  perched. 
The  stream  at  its  base,  now  called  the  Licenza,  was  the  ancient 
Digentia,  spoken  of  by  Horace.     ("Epist.,"  I,  18,  104.) 

53.  "Bandusia's  flock."     See  Horace,  "Carm,"  III,  13. 

54.  "  The  crown  he  won, 

When  proud  PidenaB  fell." 

The  corona  rnuralis  (mural  crown),  made  with  gold  and  decorated 
with  turrets,  was  given  by  the  general  to  the  first  man  who  scaled  the 
walls  of  a  besieged  city. 

55.  "Pidense."  This  city,  whose  scanty  ruins  are  found  on  the 
south  bank  of  the  Tiber,  about  five  miles  from  the  Porta  Salaria,  was 
originally  the  outpost  Etruscan  city,  and  the  ally  of  Yeii  in  her  wars 
with  Rome. 

56.  "That  fell  speckled  snake."  The  common  European  viper. 
Its  venom  is  said  to  be  more  dangerous  the  more  southern  the  latitude. 

57.  "  There  Valerius  fought."  Publius  Valerius,  who  on  the  banish- 
ment of  Lucius  Tarquinius  Collatinus  succeeded  him  as  colleague  of 
Brutus  in  the  consulship.    (Livy,  II,  2.) 

58.  "RexofGabii, 

The  priest  of  Juno's  shrine." 

Most  interesting  among  the  ruins  of  Gabii  are  those  of  the  celebrated 
temple  of  Juno  Gabina. 

59.  "The  Velian  hill."  The  Velia,  numbered  in  the  original 
Septimontium  (see  note  85),  was  a  northeast  spur  of  the  Palatine 
Hill. 

60.  "A  Consular  of  Rome."  One  who  had  been  consul.  See 
note  57. 


NOTES.  149 

61.  "I  see  an  evil  sight."  After  the  manner  of  Homeric  battles, 
the  fall  of  iEbutius  had  evidently  resulted  in  the  defeat  of  the  Roman 
left  wing. 

62.  "  From  Aufidus. "  The  Aufidus  (now  the  Of  ante) ,  the  principal 
river  of  Apulia,  flows  from  the  Apennines  into  the  Adriatic  Sea. 

63.  "ToPo."  The  Padua  (now  the  Po)  rises  in  the  Cottian  Alps. 
and  flows  easterly  across  Italy  into  the  Adriatic  Sea. 

64.  '•  The  southern  mountains."     The  Alban  Hills. 

65.  "  The  furies  of  thy  brother."  The  Furies  were  the  deities  who 
haunted  and  punished  those  who  had  committed  crimes  which  human 
justice  had  failed  to  avenge  adequately.  Such  was  the  rape  of  Lucretia 
by  Sextus  Tarquinius. 

66.  "  In  some  rich  Capuan's  hall. "  Capua,  now  Sta  Maria  cli  Capua 
Yetere,  was  the  second  city  of  Italy,  and  was  noted  for  its  wealth  and 
the  effeminacy  of  its  citizens. 

67.  k;  Well  Samothracia  knows  us."  In  allusion  to  the  legend  that 
when  the  Argo  was  buffeted  by  storms  in  the  northern  JEgean,  Orpheus 
prayed  to  the  Samothracian  gods,  whereupon  stars  appeared  upon  the 
heads  of  Castor  and  Pollux,  who  were  also  members  of  the  expedition, 
and  the  storm  ceased.     The  island  is  now  called  Samothraki. 

68.  "  Cyrene  knows  us  well."  Cyrene  was  a  Spartan  colony  on 
the  north  coast  of  Tripoli.  Extensive  ruins  show  its  ancient  impor- 
tance.    Castor  and  Pollux  were  honored  there  with  a  great  festival. 

69.  "Gay  Tarentum."  Tarentum,  now  Taranto,  was  settled  by 
Spartans  about  707  b.c,  and  became  one  of  the  most  powerful  cities 
of  Magna  Graecia. 

70.  '-The masts  of  Syracuse."  Syracuse,  perhaps  the  most  famous 
of  Greek  colonial  cities  of  the  west,  was  settled  by  Dorians  from  Corinth. 

71.  '•  The  proud  Eurotas."  The  Eurotas  (now  the  Vasili  Potamo) 
rises  in  Arcadia  and  flows  southward  through  Laconia,  past  Sparta, 
emptying  into  the  Laconian  Gulf. 

72.  "  Ardea."  The  site  of  Ardea  is  now  marked  by  rather  exten- 
sive ruins  and  a  poor  village  that  occupies  the  site  of  the  citadel. 

73.  "  The  hearth  of  Vesta."  The  remains  of  the  circular  temple 
of  Vesta  are  still  visible  in  the  Forum,  near  that  of  Castor  and  Pollux. 
See  also  "  Horatius,"  note  42. 

74.  -;  The  Golden  Shield."     See  "  Horatius,"  note  21. 

75.  t;  The  Celtic  plain."  The  plains  of  Lombardy,  the  valley  of  the 
Po.  were  inhabited  by  tribes  of  Celtic  Gauls. 

76.  k-  Our  Sire  Quirinus."  Quirinus,  an  ancient  Roman  (or  Latin) 
war  deity,  was  supposed  to  be  the  apotheosized  Romulus. 


150  NOTES. 

77.  "Lanuvium."  The  site  of  Lanuvium  is  now  occupied  by  the 
small  town  of  Civita  Lavinia. 

78.  "  Nomentum  "  lay  near  the  modern  village  of  Mentana. 

79.  u  Arpinum"  is  now  Arpino.  It  was  the  birthplace  of  Marius 
and  of  Marcus  Tullius  Cicero.  As  the  greatest  of  the  Tullian  gens 
was  born  there,  Macaulay  calls  its  chief  Tullus. 

80.  ' '  Anxur."  A  town  of  the  V olscians.  Later  it  was  called  Tarra- 
cina,  now  Terracina. 

81.  "  The  great  Arician  seer."    The  Bex  Nemorensis.    See  note  33. 

82.  "  The  High  Pontiff."  The  Pontifex  Maximus,  head  of  the  col- 
lege of  pontiffs,  was  the  highest  religious  dignitary  in  ancient  Rome. 
The  details  of  his  selection,  duties,  dignities,  etc.,  will  be  found  in 
any  dictionary  of  antiquities.  The  title  was  probably  derived  from 
pons  (a  bridge)  and  facere  used  in  the  sense  of  the  Greek  pefriv  (to 
perform  a  sacrifice),  because  the  pontiffs  presided  over  certain  annual 
sacrifices  that  were  offered  on  the  Sublician  Bridge.  It  is  also  main- 
tained that  facere  should  be  construed  "  to  make  "  (or  build),  and  that 
the  title  means  a  bridge  builder,  because  the  first  bridge  over  the  Tiber 
was  built  by  or  under  the  auspices  of  the  pontiffs.  The  name  is  espe- 
cially interesting  as  having  been  preserved  as  one  of  the  titles  of  the 
popes  of  Rome. 

83.  "  In  all  Etruria's  colleges."  The  Latin  collegium  was  not  used 
as  now  to  designate  an  advanced  educational  institution,  but  meant 
simply  a  corporation  of  several  collegce  (colleagues)  banded  together 
for  any  religious  or  civil  purpose.  As  Rome's  hierarchy  and  ritual 
were  drawn  largely  from  Etruscan  sources,  it  was  natural  to  praise  the 
head  of  the  college  of  pontiffs  by  comparing  him  favorably  with  those 
of  Etruria. 

84.  "  The  great  Asylum. "  Temples,  altars,  sacred  groves,  etc. ,  were 
held  throughout  the  classical  world  to  be  asylums  or  places  of  refuge 
for  slaves,  debtors,  and  criminals  who  fled  to  them.  The  allusion  here 
is  to  the  story  told  by  Livy  (I,  8),  that  Romulus,  in  order  to  increase 
the  population  of  his  city,  established  such  a  sanctuary  on  the  slope  of 
the  Capitoline  Hill.  It  was  enclosed  and  known  later  as  the  "Two 
Groves." 

85.  "  The  hill-tops  seven."  The  original  seven  hills  (Septimontiinn) 
were,  according  to  Festus,  the  Palatium,  Yelia,  Cselius,  Cermalus  (on 
the  northwest  side  of  the  Palatine),  Fagutal  (between  the  Arch  of 
Gallienus  and  the  Sette  Sale),  Oppius,  and  Cispius  (both  also  parts  of 
the  Esquiline). 

86.  "  The  fire  that  burns  for  aye."     See  "  Horatius,"  note  42. 


NOTES.  151 

87.  "Vesta."     See  note  73. 

88.  "  In  harness  on  his  right.'1  It  looks  as  if  Macaulay  had  tripped 
here  ;  for  while  the  Greeks  looked  for  signs  of  good  augury  on  the 
right,  the  Romans  looked  for  them  on  the  left.  Both  agreed  in  con- 
sidering the  east  lucky,  but  the  Greek  augur  faced  north,  and  the 
Roman,  south.  The  criticism  is  perhaps  trivial,  since  the  appearance 
of  supporting  gods  upon  either  hand  of  a  general  in  battle  would 
doubtless  be  considered  favorable  ;  but  it  is  a  compliment  to  Macau- 
lay's  care  in  such  matters,  that  one  wonders  he  did  not  place  the  good 
omen  on  the  left.  The  same  comment  may  be  made  upon  the  allusion 
in  stanza  XXXII. 

89.  '•  Safe  comes  the  ship  to  haven.*'     See  Horace,  "  Carin."  I,  3. 

VIRGINIA. 

1.  "The  three  memorable  laws":  First,  that  one  consul  should 
always  be  a  plebeian.  Second,  that  no  one  should  possess  more  than 
500  jugera  of  the  public  land  nor  keep  upon  it  more  than  100  head  of 
large  or  500  of  small  cattle.  Third,  that  certain  interests  paid  on 
borrowed  money  should  be  deducted  from  the  debt,  and  that  the  bal- 
ance should  be  paid  in  three  yearly  instalments. 

2.  "  Fescennine  verse. "  Originally  extemporaneous  verses  recited 
in  dialogues  by  country  people,  principally  at  harvest  and  wedding 
festivities.  They  are  said  to  have  originated  at  the  Etruscan  town  of 
Fescenium.  Others  say  that  the  name  is  derived  from  fascium 
(enchantment),  which  the  verses  were  supposed  to  ward  off.  At  first 
they  were  confined  to  mutual  satire  and  repartee,  but  with  the 
deterioration  of  morals  they  became  grossly  obscene. 

3.  "  The  story  of  Domitian's  turbot."     See  Juvenal,   "  Sat."  IV. 

4.  "The  bold  Tribunes.''     See  Introduction  to  this  poem. 

5.  "Fountains  running  wine."  In  the  Golden  Age  of  Greek 
mythology  life  was  pictured  as  ideal.  Truth  and  right  were  universal, 
war  was  unknown,  the  earth  brought  forth  its  increase  without  labor 
of  ploughing  and  sowing  ;  perpetual  spring  reigned,  with  its  wealth  of 
flowers,  and  the  rivers  ran  with  milk  and  wine. 

6.  "  Maids  with  snaky  tresses."  A  reference  to  the  Gorgons  of 
Greek  mythology,  the  most  famous  of  whom  was  Medusa,  whose  head 
turned  those  who  saw  it  into  stone.  The  story  is  prettily  told  in 
Bulfinch's  "Age  of  Fable." 

7.  ••  Sailors  turned  to  swine."  Alluding  to  the  tale  of  the  com- 
panions of  Ulysses  changed  into  swine  by  Circe.     (See  "  Battle  of 


152  NOTES. 

Lake  Regillus,"  note  32.)  Circe  was  supposed  to  symbolize  sensual 
indulgence,  the  pursuit  of  which  was  aptly  fabled  to  change  men  into 
the  lowest  of  the  beasts. 

8.  "  The  wicked  Ten. "     See  Introduction  to  this  poem,  and,  for 
the  full  story  of  the  Decemvirate  and  its  fall,  Livy,  III. 

9.  .  "  King  Tarquin."     See  Livy,  I,  47-60. 

10.  "  Twelve  axes."  The  consular  insignia  were  the  axes  (secures) 
bound  up  in  bundles  of  elm  staves  (fasces) .  In  some  cases  only  the 
fasces  were  carried  by  the  lictors.  See  "Battle  of  Lake  Regillus," 
notes  1  and  28. 

11.  "  The  client  Marcus."  The  clients  of  the  great  houses  were  a 
distinct  class  in  Rome.  Though  they  seem  to  have  had  votes  in  the 
comitia  centuriata  for  the  election  of  magistrates,  passage  of  laws,  etc. , 
still  they  were  not  plebeians  or  Roman  citizens  in  the  full  sense  of  the 
terms.  The  best  parallel  is  found  in  the  position  of  the  feudal  retainers 
of  mediaeval  Europe  as  opposed  to  that  of  the  free  commons  of  the 
towns.  Each  noble  patron  prided  himself  on  the  number  of  his  clients  ; 
the  relation  was  hereditary,  and,  in  later  times,  even  cities  and  states 
took  some  noble  family  as  their  patron,  usually  that  of  the  general  who 
had  subjugated  them. 

12.  "With  her  small  tablets  in  her  hand."  Tabula?  ceratce,  upon 
which  the  ancients  wrote  with  the  sharp  stylus  of  steel  or  ivory,  were 
small,  oblong  pieces  of  wood,  covered  with  wax,  and  hinged  so  as  to 
fold  together. 

13.  "  The  Sacred  Street."  The  Via  Sacra  probably  ran  from  about 
where  the  Coliseum  now  stands,  through  the  forum,  which,  together 
with  the  comitium,  was  practically  embraced  by  its  two  branches,  and 
to  where  the  Clivus  Capitolinus  began  its  winding  ascent  of  the 
Capitolium. 

14.  "  Lucrece."     Eor  the  story  of  Lucretia,  see  Livy,  I,  57  et  seq. 

15.  "  The  Alban  Mountains"  lie  about  twelve  miles  to  the  south- 
east of  Rome. 

16.  "  The  Seven  Hills."     See  "Battle  of  Lake  Regillus,"  note  85. 

17.  "  The  Forum  all  alive."  The  forum  in  early  times  had  on  two 
sides  porticoes  of  peperino  columns  between  which  were  the  stalls  of 
schoolmasters  and  the  shops  of  tradesmen,  principally  butchers.  At  a 
later  period  money-changers  and  bankers  occupied  most  of  the  cells. 

18.  "Punic."     Carthaginian. 

19.  "The  year  of  the  sore  sickness."  The  pestilence  of  463  b.c. 
afflicted  Rome  fourteen  years  before  the  episode  of  Virginia  is  sup- 
posed to  have  occurred.     See  Livy,  III,  6. 


XOTES.  153 

20.  ••Whereon  three  mouldering  helmets,  three  rusting  swords,  are 
hung."     The  spoils  of  the  Curatii  slain  by  the  Horatii  in  the  war 

between  Rome  and  Alba  in  the  reign  of  Tullus  Hostilius.     See  Livy, 
I,  24-2(3. 

21.  "Be  men  to-day,  Quirites."  Quirites  (from  Quirium.  the 
original  Sabine  city  on  the  Quirinal  and  Capitolium,  or  from 
Quirinus.  See  "Battle  of  Lake  Regillus,"  note  76)  was  the  term 
applied  to  the  citizens  or  people  of  Rome  in  their  civil  capacity. 
For  the  army  to  be  so  addressed  implied  deep  disgrace  and  carried 
with  it  the  inference  that  the  soldiers  were  such  no  longer,  and  were 
worthy  to  be  considered  only  as  the  rabble  of  the  forum.  The 
distinction  was  much  more  clearly  defined  in  later  times  when 
the  legionaries  became  more  and  more  a  professional  class,  and 
when  the  populace  had  degenerated.  *  Caesar  and  other  generals 
brought  mutinous  troops  to  terms,  on  several  occasions,  by  merely 
addressing  them  as  Quirites. 

22.  "  For  this  did  Servius  give  us  laws."  Servius  Tullius,  the 
sixth  of  the  kings,  was  the  defender  of  the  commons  against  the 
patricians.     His  story  is  told  in  Livy,  I. 

23.  "  Tarquin's  evil  seed.1'     See  Livy,  I,  57  et  seq. 

24.  "  The  axes  of  their  sire."  An  allusion  to  the  story  of  Brutus, 
the  first  Roman  consul,  who  ordered  his  sons  to  execution  for  con- 
spiring for  the  return  of  the  Tarquins.     See  Livy,  II,  5. 

25.  "  Scawola's  right  hand."  For  the  story  of  Mucius  Scaevola,  see 
Livy,  II,  12. 

26.  "One  lord."     A  king. 

27.  "The  Sacred  Hill."  The  sacred  mount  has  been  identified  with 
the  hill  about  three  miles  from  Rome,  just  beyond  where  the  Ponte 
Xomentano  bridges  the  Anio  (or  Teverone).  For  the  secession  of 
the  plebeians,  and  the  first  election  of  tribunes  consequent  thereon, 
see  Livy,  II,  32-33.  Thereafter  the  ground  was  left  open,  occupied 
only  by  an  altar  to  Jupiter,  to  whom  the  hill  was  consecrated. 

28.  "  They  faced  the  Marcian  fury."  For  the  story  of  Caius  (or 
Gnaeus)  Marcins  Coriolanus.  see  Livy,  II,  33  et  scq. 

29.  "  They  tamed  the  Fabian  pride."  The  Fabian  gens  was  often 
at  deadly  feud  with  the  commons.  Macaulay  probably  refers  here  to 
when,  in  482  B.C.,  the  soldiers  refused  to  fight  the  Yeientes  under 
the  consul  Quintus  Fabius,  who  was  obliged  to  return  home  unsuc- 
cessful and  disgraced. 

30.  "The  fiercest  Quinctius."  Caeso  Quinctius,  son  of  Lucius 
Quinctius  Cincinnatus,  was  exiled  461  b.c 


154  NOTES. 

31.  "The  haughtiest  Claudius."  Appius  Claudius,  the  founder  of 
the  house. 

32.  "Fasces."     See  note  10. 

33.  "  Still  keep  the  holy  fillets  ;  still  keep  the  purple  gown, 

The  axes,  and  the  curule  chair,  the  car,  and  laurel  crown." 

At  this  time  all  offices,  religious,  civil,  and  military,  were  in  the 
hands  of  the  patricians.  Icilius  uses  the  official  insignia  for  the  offices 
themselves  :  the  holy  fillets  for  the  priesthoods,  the  curule  chair  for 
high  magistracies,  the  trabea  with  its  purple  stripes,  and  the  axes,  for 
consulships  and  dictatorships,  and  the  ivory  chair  car  and  laurel 
crown  for  the  triumphing  general. 

34.  "  Still  fill  your  garners  from  the  soil  which  our  good  swords 
have  won."  For  this  and  other  patrician  privileges  and  abuses,  see 
Introduction  to  this  poem. 

35.  "The  Shades  beneath  us."  The  spirits  of  the  dead  in  the 
realms  of  Pluto. 

36.  "Your  yet  more  cruel  love."  By  ancient  Roman  law  there 
could  be  no  full  and  legal  marriage  between  patricians  and  plebeians, 
but,  four  years  after  the  episode  of  Virginia,  the  Lex  Canuleia  did 
away  with  this  restriction. 

37.  "  High  Pontiffs."     See  "  Battle  of  Lake  Regillus,"  note  82. 

38.  "  Ancient  Alban  kings."  Alba  Longa,  not  far  from  the  modern 
Albano,  the  most  ancient  town  in  Latium,  was  said  to  have  been  built 
by  Ascanius,  the  son  of  iEneas.  It  was  called  "Longa,"  because  it 
stretched  in  a  long  line  down  the  Alban  mount.  On  its  destruction 
by  Tullus  Hostilius  its  inhabitants  were  removed  to  Pome. 

39.  "  Capuan  odors."  A  street  in  Capua  (the  Seplasia)  was  occu- 
pied entirely  by  the  sellers  of  perfumes.  See  also  "Battle  of  Lake 
Regillus,"  note  66. 

40.  "Spanish  gold."  Spain  was  a  leading  source  of  the  ancient 
gold  supply.     See  "Prophecy  of  Capys,"  note  7. 

41.  "  Straightway  Virginius  led  the  maid."  For  the  full  story  of 
Virginia,  see  Livy,  III,  44  et  seq. 

42.  "The  great  sewer."  The  Cloaca  Maxima,  the  building  of 
which  is  assigned  to  Tarquinius  Priscus  and  which  is  still  intact  and 
in  use. 

43.  "  My  civic  crown."  The  civic  crown,  made  of  oak  leaves,  was 
given  to  a  soldier  who  saved  the  life  of  a  Roman  citizen  in  battle. 

44.  "The  Volscian."     See  "  Horatius,"  note  64. 

45.  "Dwellers  in  the  nether  gloom,  avengers  of  the  slain."     The 


NOTES.  155 

deities  of  the  under-world,  over  whom  Pluto  and  Proserpina  presided  : 
iEacus,  Minos,  and  Rhadamanthus,  the  judges,  but  more  especially 
the  Furies,  Alecto,  Tisiphone,  and  Meg^era,  whose  duty  it  was  to 
punish  the  crimes  of  those  too  strong  for  human  justice. 

46.  "Ten  thousand  pounds  of  copper."  The  earliest  Roman  coin, 
the  ces  or  as,  was  made  of  copper  or  bronze  and  weighed  a  pound. 
Before  that  time  (the  reign  of  Servius  Tullius  ?)  lumps  or  ingots  of 
the  metal  were  weighed  out  as  a  circulating  medium. 

47.  ,;A  cypress  crown."  The  cypress  has  been  emblematic  of 
mourning  from  the  earliest  classical  times. 

48.  "  The  Pincian  Hill."  This  hill  was  not  included  in  the  original 
city,  but  lay  north  of  the  walls  of  Servius.  The  walls  of  Aurelian 
enclosed  the  greater  part  of  it. 

49.  "  The  Latin  Gate."  The  Porta  Capena,  the  most  important  of 
the  southern  gates  in  the  Servian  wall,  is  doubtless  meant.  The  Via 
Appia  and  the  Via  Latina  started  from  it  in  one  road,  separating  half- 
way to  the  Aurelian  Wall,  through  which  they  issued  by  two  gates.  — 
the  Appian  and  the  Latin.  It  is  quite  possible  that  in  early  times  the 
Porta  Capena  was  called  also  Latina. 

50.  "Caius  of  Corioli."     See  note  28. 

51.  "  The  yoke  of  Furius."     Marcus  Furius  Camillus. 

52.  "  The  Calabrian  sea-marks."  High  points  along  the  Calabrian 
coast  (the  southeastern  part  of  Italy),  by  which  the  ancient  mariners, 
being  without  compass,  steered  their  course. 

53.  "The  grea,t  Thunder-Cape."  Acroceraunium.  on  the  coast  of 
Epirus  (Dion  Cassius,  XLI,  44),  now  Cape  Linguetta. 

54.  "  Mount  Palatine."     See  "  Horatius,"  note  58. 

THE   PROPHECY   OF   CAPYS. 

1.  "  Now  slain  is  King  Amulius. "  The  story  of  the  birth  of  Romulus 
and  Remus,  the  burying  alive  of  their  mother,  the  vestal,  Rea  Silvia, 
and  the  exposure,  rescue,  and  return  of  the  twins,  is  told  by  Livy.  I, 
3  et  seq. 

2.  "  Alba  Longa."     See  "  Virginia,"  note  38. 

3.  '-The  throne  of  Aventine."  Among  several  suggested  deriva- 
tions of  the  word  "  Aventine  "  is  that  it  is  named  from  Aventinus.  an 
early  Alban  king  who  was  buried  there  (Livy,  I,  3).  Aventinus  was 
thus  a  predecessor  of  Amulius  on  the  throne  of  Alba  Longa. 

4.  "  The  Pontiff  Camers."  The  religious  hierarch  would  naturally 
be  the  one  to  pronounce  sentence  upon  a  vestal  who  had  broken  her 
vow  of  chastity.     See  also  "  Battle  of  Lake  Regillus,"  note  82. 


156  NOTES. 

5.  "A  poplar  crown."  The  poplar  was  sacred  to  Hercules,  and 
the  poplar  crown  was  emblematic  of  courage  and  adventure.  Horace, 
"  Carm.,"  I,  7.  Hercules  was  especially  reverenced  by  Romulus.  See 
Livy,  I,  7. 

6.  "  His  yellow  foam."     See  "  Horatius,"  note  24. 

7.  "In  the  Tartessian  mine."  The  district  of  Tartessus,  noted 
for  its  mines,  lay  on  the  coast  of  Spain,  about  the  mouth  of  the  Bsetis 
(now  Guadalquivir).  It  is  said  to  have  been  the  Tarshish  of  Scrip- 
ture narrative.     See  also  "Virginia,"  note  40. 

8.  "The  Libyan  brine."  The  eastern  Mediterranean,  a  scornful 
allusion  to  the  mercantile  preeminence  of  Carthage. 

9.  "  Thou  shalt  not  drink  from  amber  ; 

Thou  shalt  not  rest  on  down. 

Amber,  down,  etc.,  signify  the  luxuries  of  effeminate  states,  but 
which  are  not  for  Rome. 

10.  "  Arabia  shall  not  steep  thy  locks."  Alluding  to  the  perfumes 
that  were  imported  largely  from  Arabia. 

11.*  "Nor  Sidon  tinge  thy  gown."  A  reference  to  the  purple  dye 
made  in  the  cities  of  the  Tyrian  coast. 

12.  "Vesta's  sacred  fire."     See  "Horatius,"  note  42. 

13.  "  Pomona  loves  the  orchard."  Pomona  was  a  Roman  goddess 
who  presided  over  fruit  trees. 

14.  "  And  Liber  loves  the  vine."     Liber  was  the  Roman  Bacchus. 

15.  "  And  Pales  loves  the  straw-built  shed. "  Pales  was  the  Roman 
goddess  of  cattle  and  pasture  land. 

16.  "  And  Venus  loves  the  whispers 

Of  plighted  youth  and  maid." 

Venus  was  the  Roman  goddess  of  love,  afterwards  identified  with 
the  Greek  Aphrodite,  from  whom,  however,  her  original  conception 
differed  quite  considerably,  and  for  the  better.  It  would  seem  as  if 
the  love-goddess  idea  becomes  more  licentious  as  it  is  traced  east. 
In  modern  times  the  name  of  Venus  is  used  almost  universally  for 
Aphrodite. 

17.  "Thine,  Roman,  is  the  pilum."  The  pilum,  the  characteristic 
weapon  of  the  Roman  legionary,  was  a  heavy  javelin  with  a  staff  four 
and  a  half  feet  long,  and  a  barbed  iron  head  of  the  same  length,  but 
which  was  fitted  halfway  down  the  staff,  making  a  total  length  of  about 
six  and  three-fourths  feet.  Its  advantage  lay  in  that  it  could  be  used 
at  a  greater  distance  than  the  longest  spear,  while  its  weight  gave  it  a. 


NOTES.  157 

destructive  force  far  beyond  that  of  missiles  from  the  bow  or  sling. 
One  can  imagine  the  effect  upon  a  Greek  phalanx  of  showers  of  such 
weapons  fully  capable  of  piercing  the  strongest  defensive  armor. 

18.  "The  even  trench,  the  bristling  mound."  Few  matters  of 
antiquity  are  more  interesting  than  the  Roman  camp  with  its  mathe- 
matical proportions  and  division  of  space,  its  ditch  and  rampart  set 
with  stakes,  and  so  elaborate  in  its  unvaried  details,  that  a  walled  city 
might  almost  be  said  to  spring  into  being  at  each  night's  halt.  Many 
cities,  in  fact,  owe  their  origin  to  Roman  camps,  as  is  evidenced  through- 
out England  by  the  frequent  terminations  "Chester  "and  "cester" 
(from  the  Latin  castra). 

19.  "The  legion's  ordered  line."  The  legion's  strong  yet  flexible 
order  of  battle  is  also  most  interesting,  and  the  whole  subject  of 
Roman  military  affairs  and  discipline  may  be  found  treated  in 
"  Anthon"  or  any  leading  work  on  Roman  antiquities. 

20.  "The  wheels  of  triumph."  The  wheels  of  the  ivory  car  which 
bore  the  triumphing  general  along  the  Sacred  Way,  up  the  Clivus 
Capitolinus,  and  to  the  steps  leading  to  the  Capitol.  For  full 
descriptions  of  a  triumph  see  "Anthon"  and  other  works  on  Roman 
antiquities. 

21.  "  Soft  Capua's  curled  revellers."  See  "Battle  of  Lake  Regillus," 
note  66. 

22.  "The  Lucumoes  of  Arnus."  The  Etruscan  nobles  who  held 
sway  over  the  valley  of  the  Arnus,  or  Arno.     See  "  Horatius,"  note  36. 

23.  "  The  proud  Samnite's  heart  of  steel."  The  Samnite  wars  were 
the  bitterest  of  the  inter-Italian  struggles  that  led  up  to  the  supremacy 
of  Rome.  The  first  was  from  343  to  341  b.c,  the  second  from  326  to 
304,  and  the  third  from  299  to  290. 

24.  "The  huge  earth-shaking  beast."  The  Greeks,  from  the  time 
of  Alexander,  used  elephants  in  war.  These  animals  carried  little 
turrets  containing  archers  and  slingers.  Frequently  they  were  pro- 
vided with  some  defensive  armor,  and  scythelike  blades  were  attached 
to  their  tusks.  Trained  and  well  driven,  they  proved  formidable  adver- 
saries against  the  dense  array  of  the  phalanx.  The  Romans  met  them 
for  the  first  time  in  the  war  against  Pyrrhus  ;  but,  once  accustomed  to 
their  appearance  and  attack,  the  comparatively  open  legionary  line  of 
battle  was  readily  adapted  to  receive  and  defeat  it. 

25.  "The  bold  Epirotes,  wedged  close  with  shield  and  spear." 
The  Epirotes,  like  all  Greeks  from  the  time  of  the  Macedonian  suprem- 
acy, depended  mainly  upon  their  phalanx.  This,  in  the  days  of  Philip 
and  Alexander,  consisted  of  6000  heavy-armed  infantry  with  spears 


158  NOTES. 

18  to  20  feet  long,  and  drawn  up  16  deep  in  a  solid  mass.  The  num- 
ber varied  considerably  at  different  times,  and  we  read  in  "  JElian" 
of  a  phalanx  of  16,000  men  divided  into  four  divisions.  The  shock  of 
such  a  body,  if  unbroken,  must  have  been  terrific.  When  once  broken, 
however,  it  was  helpless,  and  the  pilum  was  the  weapon  best  adapted 
to  tear  fatal  rents  in  it. 

26.  f*  Rome's  short  broadsword."  The  Roman  sword,  though 
longer  than  the  Greek,  had  still  a  short  blade.  It  was  heavy  and  two- 
edged,  adapted  for  both  cutting  and  thrusting. 

27.  "The  Red  King."  The  name  Pyrrhus  signifies,  in  Greek, 
u  red-haired." 

28.  "  Is  not  the  gown  washed  white  ?  "  See  the  Introduction  to  this 
poem. 

29.  "  Manius  Curius."     See  Introduction  to  this  poem. 

30.  ' '  The  third  embroidered  gown."  The  toga  picta,  white  embroid- 
ered with  gold,  was  worn  over  the  tunica  palmata,  or  flowered  tunic, 
by  the  triumping  general. 

31.  "  The  third  lofty  car."     See  note  20. 

32.  "The  third  green  crown."  A  crown  of  laurel  was  worn  by  the 
triumphing  general. 

33.  "The  steeds  of  Rosea."  Rosea  was  the  name  given  to  the 
fertile  plain  extending  along  the  valley  of  the  Yelinus  (Velino)  near 
Reate  (Rieti).  It  was  famous  for  its  breeds  of  asses,  mules,  and 
horses.  See  Virg.  "i£n.,"  VII,  712;  Varro,  "  De  Re  Rustica,"  I, 
7,  §  10,  II,  1,  §  16;  III,  2,  §  10,  and  Cicero,  "Ad  Atticus,"  IV,  15. 

34.  "  Mevania's  bull."  Mevania  was  an  ancient  name  of  the  Cli- 
tumnus.     See  "Horatius,"  note  14. 

35.  "The  Sacred  Way."     See  "Virginia,"  note  13. 

36.  "The  suppliant's  Grove."  See  "Battle  of  Lake  Regillus," 
note  84. 

37#  "  Then  where,  o'er  two  bright  havens, 

The  towers  of  Corinth  frown." 
Situated  upon  an  isthmus,  Corinth   had  two  harbors,  one  on   the 
Saronic  Gulf  and  one  on  the  Gulf  of  Corinth. 

38.  "  The  gigantic  King  of  Day. "  The  wonderful  statue  of  Phoebus, 
the  Sun-god,  the  national  deity  of  the  Rhodians.  It  was  known  as  the 
Colossus  of  Rhodes  and  was  reckoned  among  the  "  Seven  Wonders  of 
the  World."     See  Introduction  to  this  poem. 

39.  "  Where  soft  Orontes  murmurs."  The  Orontes,  now  the  Nahr 
El-Ahsy,  rises  in  southern  Syria  and  flows  northward,  until,  circling 
Antioch,  it  empties  southwesterly  into  the  Mediterranean.    Antioch, 


NOTES.  159 

built  by  Seleucus  Xicator,  was  a  city  of  wonderful  magnificence.      See 
also  Introduction  to  this  poem. 

•40.  u  Dark-red  colonnades."  The  red  granite  of  Syene,  and  much 
of  the  sandstone  used  in  the  building  of  the  great  Egyptian  temples 
and  palaces,  gave  them  a  rich  reddish  tone,  while  the  ruins  at  Luxor, 
Karnac,  and  at  other  points  along  the  Nile  tell  us  of  colonnades  that 
must  indeed  have  seemed  endless. 

41.  "Byrsa's  thousand  masts."  Byrsa  was  the  citadel  of  Carthage. 
See  also  "  Battle  of  Lake  Regillus,"  note  41. 

42.  u  Where  through  the  sand  of  morning-land 

The  camel  bears  the  spice." 

Arabia,  Mesopotamia,  and  Media,  across  whose  deserts  the  Indian 
caravans  brought  the  spices  of  the  far  East. 

43.  "Where  Atlas  flings  his  shadow."  The  great  Atlas  range  or 
ranges  extend  from  the  Atlantic  Ocean  to  the  eastern  border  of 
Mauritania,  or  across  the  modern  Morocco  into  Algiers.  The  fable 
was,  that  Atlas,  whose  bulk  surpassed  that  of  all  men.  was  king  of  the 
farthest  west,  and  that  when  he  offered  violence  instead  of  hospitality 
to  Perseus,  the  hero  held  toward  him  the  head  of  the  Gorgon,  Medusa, 
whereupon  he  became  stone  —  a  mountain  upon  whose  top  the  gods 
set  heaven  with  all  the  stars,  that  they  might  be  supported  in  place. 


Leading  Texts  for  Higher  Schools 

A  New  English  Grammar.  By  James  M.  Milne,  Ph.  D.  Pp. 
384.     Introductory  price,  75  cents. 

An  Elementary  Grammar  cf  the  Spanish  Language*  By  Louis  A. 
Loiseaux,  Assistant  Instructor  in  Spanish,  Columbia  Univer- 
sity.    Pp.  190.     (In  press.) 

An  Elementary  Spanish  Reader,  By  Louis  A.  Loiseaux,  Assistant 
Instructor  in  Spanish,  Columbia  University.     (In  press.) 

New  Complete  Arithmetic*  By  David  M.  Sensenig  and  Robert 
F.  Anderson,  Instructors  in  Mathematics,  State  Normal 
School,  West  Chester,  Pa.     Pp.  437.     Price,  90  cents. 

Elements  of  Gvil  Government*  By  William  A.  Mowry,  Ph.D., 
for  twenty  years  Senior  Principal  of  the  English  and  Clas- 
sical School,  Providence,  R.  I.  Pp.  226.  Pr:ce,  72  cents. 
Special  State  Editions.  Each  contains  some  70  additional 
pages  describing  the  government  of  the  particular  state. 
Price,  90  cents  each. 

Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Economics.  By  Charles  Jesse 
Bullock,  Ph.D.,  Assistant  Professor  of  Economics,  Williams 
College.    New  and  Revised  Edition.     Pp.  581.  Price,  $1.28. 

Elements  of  Physics*  By  S.  P.  Meads,  Professor  of  Natural 
Science,  Oakland  High  School,  Oakland,  Cal.  Pp.  288. 
Price,  72  cents. 

Elements  of  Chemistry*  By  S.  P.  Meads,  Professor  of  Natural 
Science,  Oakland  High  School,  Oakland,  Cal.  Pp.  178. 
Price,  80  cents. 

An  Elementary  Experimental  Chemistry.  By  John  B.  Ekeley, 
Former  Science  Master,  St.  Paul's  School,  Garden  City, 
N.Y.     Pp.  264.     Price,  90  cents. 

Qualitative  Chemical  Analysis*  By  John  Howard  Appleton,  A.M., 
Professor  of  Chemistry,  Brown  University.  Pp.  144.  Price, 
75  cents. 

Quantitative  Chemical  Analysis*  By  John  Howard  Appleton, 
A.M.     Pp.  184.     Price,  $1.25. 

The  Silver  Series  of  English  and  American  Classics*  The  best 
works  of  the  best  authors,  carefully  annotated  and  explained 
by  leading  scholars  and  critics.  Essays  and  Orations ;  Fiction 
and  General  Literature;  Poems,  Ballads  and  Lyrics.  Paper  and 
cloth;  portraits.  Prices,  15  cents  to  72  cents.  Complete 
list  will  be  sent  on  application. 


SILVER,    BURDETT    &    COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  BOSTON  CHICAGO 


m      tfWI 


m 


Deacidified  using  the  Bookkeeper  process. 
Neutralizing  agent:  Magnesium  Oxide 
Treatment  Date:  April  2009 

PreservationTechnologies 

A  WORLD  LEADER  IN  COLLECTIONS  PRESERVATION 

1 1 1  Thomson  Park  Drive 
Cranberry  Township,  PA  16066 
(724)779-2111 


LIBRARY  OF  CONGRESS 


0  014  493  820  3       §\ 


mm 


I